The Board dismissed the Veteran's appeal for service connection for PTSD due to MST as an impermissible concurrent election.
The deciding factor: The Veteran submitted a Higher-Level Review (HLR) request and then filed a Decision Review Request: Board Appeal, which violated claims processing rules prohibiting concurrent elections under the Appeals Modernization Act.
- Claimed conditions
- posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to military sexual trauma (MST)
- How they argued it
- Not specified
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- December 19, 2025
- Citation
- A25109600
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 998 · Granted: 40% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation A25109600.
What this means for you
A dismissal means the Board did not decide the issue on its merits — usually because it was withdrawn or had become moot. It says more about procedure than about whether a claim like this can win.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Dismissed
The appeal for service connection for PTSD due to MST was dismissed as the March 2024 rating decision was not final and the subsequent appeal was premature.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the Veteran's claims for service connection for an acquired psychiatric disorder, sleep apnea, and headaches due to a lack of evidence in her VA treatment records. The Veteran is requested to provide information about any relevant medical providers.
- Denied
The Board denied the Veteran's claim for service connection for an acquired psychiatric disorder, including anxiety, PTSD due to MST, alcohol use disorder, drug use disorder, and body dysmorphia, finding that there was no evidence of a chronic disability in service or post-service continuity of symptoms. The Board also found that the Veteran's statements regarding his onset of these conditions were inconsistent with contemporaneous medical records.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Veteran's sleep apnea is being remanded for a VA clinician to provide an opinion on whether it had its onset in service or is caused by his service-connected PTSD due to MST.
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