Representative Cases

This case involves the BVA judge’s inadequate reasoning of a denial of a veteran’s claim for an increased rating for PTSD. The appeal was resolved through a joint motion to remand. ISSUE ON APPEAL TO THE CAVC (BVA overlooked evidence of s… Read More

This case involves the BVA judge’s inadequate reasoning of his denial of a veteran’s past-due benefits in a claim for an increased rating due to an increase in the severity of the veteran’s PTSD. The appeal was resolved through a jo… Read More

This case involves the BVA’s failure to comply with a Veterans Court Order in a January 2020 Memorandum Decision. The appeal was resolved through a joint motion to remand. ISSUE ON APPEAL TO THE CAVC (BVA fails to comply with Veterans Court Ord… Read More

The BVA erred when it denied service connection for peripheral neuropathy by ignoring evidence of the veteran's symptoms of the condition. Read More

This case involves a veteran’s entitlement to TDIU, but it demonstrates some of the backwards logic that invades the BVA’s interpretation of the AMA Appeals process. The appeal was resolved through a joint motion to remand. ISSUE ON APPEA… Read More

This case involves the BVA judge’s failure to consider whether a VA regulation required an effective date for Parkinson’s Disease earlier than May 2017. The appeal was resolved through a joint motion to remand. ISSUE ON APPEAL TO THE CAVC… Read More

This case involves an Army veteran who served on active duty in 1991 and then from 2008 to 2009 who was seeking a service-connected major depressive disorder rating in excess of 30%. The appeal was resolved through a joint motion to remand. ISSUE ON… Read More

This case involves a survivor’s claim for entitlement to Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC). The appellant’s late-husband served in the US Air Force from 1964 – 1984, and passed away from a rare form of non-Hodgkins lymphom… Read More

This case involved a US Army veteran (1967 to 1971) who was seeking service connection for hypertension, congestive heart failure, Type II diabetes, stroke, and atrial fibrillation due to agent orange exposure in Thailand during the Vietnam war. The… Read More

This case involves involves an Air Force veteran (2000, 2003 – 2004) and his appeal to the BVA seeking a rating above 50% for his service-connected PTSD due to suicidal ideation and total occupational and social impairment. The appeal was resol… Read More

This case involves a the resolution of a veteran’s appeal to the BVA by way of a joint motion to remand. The veteran had been claiming service connection for a psychiatric condition and total disability based on individual unemployability (TDIU). T… Read More

This case involves a US Navy veteran’s (1966 to 1981) appeal to the BVA seeking seeking service connection for his Parkinson’s disease and Type 2 Diabetes based on exposure to Agent Orange during his service in the Philippines and Guam. I… Read More

This case involves a BVA decision for a US Army veteran (1979 – 1985) who sought an earlier effective date for the grant of service connection for his hypertensive kidney disease. The appeal was resolved through a joint motion to remand. ISSUE… Read More

This case involves a Marine Corps veteran (1966 to 1969) who was seeking an earlier effective date for his service connected PTSD claim. The appeal was resolved through a joint motion to remand. ISSUE ON APPEAL TO THE CAVC (BVA wrong to deny earlier… Read More

This case involves the BVA appeal of an Army veteran (1976 to 1977) who was appealing the denial of service connection for an acquired psychiatric condition. The appeal was resolved through a joint motion to remand. ISSUE ON APPEAL TO THE CAVC (VA C&… Read More

This case involves a US Army veteran’s (1975 to 1998) appeal to the BVA seeking an increased rating for a psychiatric disorder, right lower extremity radiculopathy, and the VA’s denial of his TDIU claim. ISSUE ON APPEAL TO THE CAVC: BVA d… Read More

This case involves a US Army veteran (1984 – 1988) appealing a denial of service connection based on the failure of the C&P opinion to address continuity of symptomatology for a lumbar spine injury to the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA). Th… Read More

This case involves a US Army veteran who served from 1965 to 1967. In his appeal, a BVA Veterans Law Judge decided – again – not to award a prostate cancer rating higher than 60% based on the medical opinion of a nurse practitioner who sp… Read More

This case involves a Marine veteran (1985 to 1991) who sought a TDIU 100 percent rating for his service-connected PTSD. The appeal to the CAVC was resolved through a joint motion to remand. ISSUE ON APPEAL TO THE CAVC (BVA denied TDIU rating due to P… Read More

This case involves the application of a duplicitous legal standard by the BVA to a veteran’s TDIU appeal, in what is called a “reasons and bases” error by the Board of Veterans Appeals. While it favored a VA C&P medical opinion… Read More

This case involves several issues but centered around two: the veteran’s entitlement to increased TBI (Traumatic-Brain-Injury) and migraine ratings. ISSUE ON APPEAL TO THE CAVC (TBI & Migraine Ratings). The veteran in this case was in a car… Read More

This case involves a rating for service connected PTSD involving veteran’s suicidal ideation. ISSUE ON APPEAL TO THE CAVC: PTSD Rating for Veteran’s Suicidal Ideation. “Suicidal ideation” is a symptom prototypical of a 70-perc… Read More

ISSUE ON APPEAL TO THE CAVC: PTSD rating higher than 50-percent. The veteran appealed to the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA) seeking a PTSD rating higher than 50-percent. The VA had performed a VA C&P examination and opinion in January 2019. Rely… Read More

This case involves the BVA’s rejection of a theory of service connection by aggravation for a back condition. The BVA refused to service connect the veteran’s back injury, which he argued was aggravated by service-connected knee and hip i… Read More

This case involves a BVA decision that an Army veteran’s MOS as a light infantryman did not support his claim of exposure to an herbicide agent while at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base (RTAFB) in mid 1962. In the same decision, the BVA failed t… Read More

This case involves a veteran who served in the Air Force from 1953 to 1957. During service, he injured his back on a flight line, and has repeatedly tried to service connect the injury since leaving service in 1957. Each time, the claim was denied. T… Read More

This case involves the Court’s rejection of VA Office of General Counsel arguments regarding the legal standard for withdrawing a claim before the VA Agency of Original Jurisdiction (AOJ) or the BVA. The BVA construed a statement that “I… Read More

This case involves a veteran’s right to BVA hearings. For years, the VA and BVA have wanted to limit veterans’ ability to get a BVA hearing. Here’s how the BVA does this. The BVA remands a case on an appeal, tells the VA to get more… Read More

This case involves the special, and very powerful, Nehmer effective date rules. Mr. Greene, the veteran, sought an effective date for his service connected coronary artery disease. He argued his effective date should go back to 2006, the first claim… Read More

This case involves the Board’s failure to reopen a veteran’s claim for service connection despite admitting that he submitted new and material evidence. Our client appealed the BVA’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CA… Read More

When the BVA failed to consider all the evidence of record before finding a veteran was not exposed to asbestos in military service, the law firm of Attig | Steel was able to get the BVA decision vacated at the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims… Read More

This case involves the BVA’s dismissal of a veteran’s claim for an earlier effective date for his service-connected post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) based on clear and unmistakeable error. Our client appealed the Board’s decision to th… Read More

The cause number of this appeal, and the veteran’s name, have been withheld to protect the veteran’s privacy. In this case, the BVA denied an increased rating of 70% to a veteran for his service-connected PTSD. The BVA also found the vete… Read More

This case involves a veteran’s appeal to the BVA seeking service connection for arthritis. The veteran served in the US Air Force from 2005 to 2006. He injured his knee and other parts of his body when required to move heavy appliances into a b… Read More

Attorney Chris Attig has been working with this veteran’s survivor for half a decade to get her DIC and survivor’s accrued benefits properly awarded. The veteran was a 3 decade military veteran, who fought not only in Thailand during the… Read More

This case involves the BVA’s rating of a veteran’s service connected knee injury and a BVA credibility finding; our client appealed the BVA’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claim (CAVC). The appeal was resolved t… Read More

The law firm of Hill and Ponton approached Attig | Steel after the BVA judge denied their veteran a higher 70 percent PTSD rating. They had put a lot of work and energy into helping a veteran, and the BVA decision seemed to gloss over their thorough… Read More

The veteran in this case served in the Navy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, including deployment to Kuwait. Upon his return stateside, after attempts to reintegrate to civilian life, he began to have family and other problems. He was diagnosed… Read More

When this veteran sought a PTSD rating higher than 30% for his service connected mental health condition, the Board of Veterans Appeals denied a PTSD rating higher than 30%. The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims entered an order finding that the B… Read More

The BVA denied a veteran service connection for sleep apnea, and made several errors in doing so. First, it failed to consider the nexus between the veteran’s deviated septum treatment in service and his sleep apnea. Second, the BVA Veterans La… Read More

This case involves an earlier effective date argument: specifically, whether a veteran’s claim for service connection of his kidney disease was reasonably raised in an earlier claim for increased rating for gout. The appeal was fully briefed to… Read More

“Symptom hunting” is a common BVA error in a PTSD rating appeal, and we believed the BVA engaged in this practice when it denied our client anything more than a 50 percent PTSD rating. Here’s how it happens: using the list of exampl… Read More

This case had multiple errors in it. One of the major errors was the BVA treatment of the client’s Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). The Veteran initially had an exam in 2009 to rate his service-connectedIrritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). By the tim… Read More

Th veteran sought a higher rating for several service-connected disabilities, including central sleep apnea (CSA), chronic bronchitis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and allergic bronchospasms. The Board assigned a rating of 50… Read More

The Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA) denied a veteran a rating higher than 20% for his service connected back pain. In doing so, the BVA considered only the range of motion listed under the Diagnostic Code for the veteran’s back pain. However, i… Read More

The BVA decision in this case mischaracterized the veteran’s traditional appeal as a claim to reopen. The BVA Judge found that the veteran’s service connection claim for his left ankle disorder and bilateral pes planus were not reopened b… Read More

This case involves the BVA duty to assist in the context of a surviving spouse’s accrued benefits and DIC claims and appeals. A veteran or other claimant has a right to substantial compliance with a CAVC or BVA remand order. Stegall v. West, 11… Read More

This case involves the issue of whether a World War II veteran’s survivor can substitute into her deceased husband’s CUE Claims that pending – for nearly 2 decades – at the time of his death death. Before he died in 2010, a Wo… Read More

This case involved a veteran’s entitlement to secondary service connection, on an aggravation theory, for degenerative disc disease of the lumbar spine. The BVA is required to provide a written statement of the reasons or bases for its findings… Read More

This case involves a survivor’s claim of substitution into a veteran’s pending claims and appeals when the veteran passes away. At the time the BVA Veterans Law Judge issued the decision, the law required that a VA Form 21-534 for Survivo… Read More

This case involves 3 errors made by the BVA Veterans Law Judge in denying service connection of a shoulder injury. First, the Board of Veterans Appeals is required to address certain evidence favorable to a veteran. 38 U.S.C. § 7104(d)(1). The BVA d… Read More