CAVC Case 94-850: Back

In the August 3, 1994, BVA decision here on appeal, the Board concluded that the veteran had not submitted a well-grounded claim for service connection for Crohn's disease.

The Board found as follows: (1) The veteran's SMRs showed treatment in 1977 for intestinal flu, but not for Crohn's disease or any related condition; (2) at separation from service in 1977 there was no indication of an intestinal problem; (3) the February 1977 letter from Dr.

The Board noted that the veteran had presented statements that he had had Crohn's disease since service, but found that his statements were "inherently incredible" because they contradicted his 1977 statements, as to his medical history up to that point, 4 that he had not had any history of stomach or intestinal trouble.

A well-grounded claim requires a medical diagnosis of a current disability; medical or, in certain circumstances, lay evidence of in-service incurrence or aggravation of a disease or injury; and medical evidence of a nexus between an in-service injury or disease and a current disability.

Meyer had told them that he was treating the veteran for Crohn's disease at the time of his discharge from service, the letters do not constitute the requisite medical evidence of a diagnosis of Crohn's disease or of a nexus to service because "the connection between what a physician said and the layman's account of what he purportedly said, filtered as it was through a layman's sensibilities, is simply too attenuated and inherently unreliable to constitute `medical' evidence.

The Court explained that, although new and material evidence had not been submitted to reopen the prior disallowance of the claim, "the application was incomplete because it was missing evidence that might constitute new and material evidence to reopen" the prior disallowance, "evidence that [was] `necessary to complete the application.

Brown, the Court held that there was no section 5103(a) duty in a case where, even if a physician's statement had been obtained and stated what the appellant said it would state, it would not provide the requisite medical nexus evidence to well ground the claim.

423, 427 (1995) (holding that if appellant had presented statement from physician to effect that veteran had had heart attack "10, 20, 30 years maybe more" before 1981, such statement would not provide nexus with veteran's service from December 1942 to November 1943, because thirty years before 1981 would still be many years after veteran's separation from service and equivocal statement such as "maybe more" would not provide nexus to service).