What’s the Appeal? A Successful Case Handled by the GAD VA Benefits Team

The Board of Veterans’ Appeals denied the veteran’s claim for entitlement to service connection for a back disability.  The Veteran hired our office to appeal that denial to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

Our office was able to favorably resolve this case at the Court through a Memorandum Decision.  While the VA attorney assigned to the case did not agree that the Board had made any errors when denying the Veteran’s claims, we were able to convince the Judge that an error had been made.

In this case, the veteran had injured his back twice during his active-duty military service.  When the Veteran sought service connection for his back condition, he specifically identified one of those two injuries as causing his ongoing back issue.  When VA obtained a medical opinion addressing whether his back condition began during or was otherwise related to his active-duty military service, the examiner failed to address that injury.  Accordingly, the Judge agreed that the Board had failed to provide adequate reasoning in support of its reliance on that medical opinion.  The case will now go back to the Board for the Board to reconsider the evidence and specifically address the factual inaccuracy contained in the VA medical opinion before issuing a new decision.