BVA Case 06-1943: Psychiatric

Gambill’s case, the Board concluded that the examiner who conducted the consultation examination “did not adequately address the etiology of [Mr.

After reviewing all the evidence before it, the Board denied service connection for Mr.

With respect to the physicians’ letters, the Board noted that the physicians “did not specifically state that the veteran’s cataracts developed because of his inservice head injury,” and that to the extent the letters were 2008-7120 4 offered to establish that Mr.

that “in rendering a decision on a claim, on any evidence developed or obtained by it, [the Board] must provide a claimant with reasonable notice of such evidence and of the reliance proposed to be placed on it, and a reasonable opportunity for the claimant to respond to it,” including the right to submit additional evidence.

Gambill presented in support of his claim was clearly insufficient to establish service connection for his cataracts because it failed to show a causal nexus between his in-service head injury and his cataracts.

But it left him no worse off than he was without the report, as the rest of the evidence before the Board failed to prove actual causation.

In particular, the Board found it unnecessary to resolve the apparent conflict between the VHA ophthalmologist’s statement about her search of the medical literature and the materials submitted by Mr.

As the Board stated, even if the VHA ophthalmologist was in error as to whether head trauma could cause cataracts, there was “simply no evidence of record, to include the medical treatise excerpts or the private physicians’ statements,” that established an actual causal nexus between Mr.