The Board remanded all issues to the AOJ for further development and opinions, including VA examinations.
The deciding factor: The Board found pre-decisional duty to assist errors by the AOJ in requesting VA examinations and medical opinions.
- Claimed conditions
- bilateral hearing loss, tinnitus, hypertension, diabetes mellitus type II, acquired psychiatric disorder, to include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and adjustment disorder, lumbosacral strain, to include pain and degenerative disc disease, left hip condition, to include pain and arthritis, right hip condition, to include pain and arthritis, left knee condition, to include pain and arthritis, right knee condition, to include pain and arthritis, gout, to include as secondary to the Veteran's service-connected disabilities, left lower extremity radiculopathy to include as secondary to the Veteran's service-connected disabilities, right lower extremity radiculopathy to include as secondary to the Veteran's service-connected disabilities
- How they argued it
- Direct service connection
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- January 8, 2025
- Citation
- A25001828
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 896 · Granted: 51% (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 A25001828.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Dismissed
The Veteran's appeal for service connection of bilateral hearing loss and a ruptured right ear drum was dismissed due to the death of the Veteran.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has remanded the claims for service connection for hypertension and peripheral neuropathy of the bilateral upper and lower extremities due to insufficient medical opinions regarding their etiology.
- Dismissed
The Veteran's claim for an earlier effective date for diabetes mellitus type II with erectile dysfunction was denied as the evidence did not show that he had been diagnosed and manifested to at least a 10 percent disability rating on or prior to May 8, 2001.
- Denied
The Board found that the Veteran's bilateral hearing loss was noted upon entry into active duty service and did not increase in severity during service. Therefore, it denied his claim for service connection.
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