Citation Nr: 18152018 Decision Date: 11/20/18 Archive Date: 11/20/18 DOCKET NO. 16-44 622 DATE: November 20, 2018 ORDER As new and material evidence has not been received, the claim for entitlement to service connection for the residuals of left eye trauma is not reopened. FINDING OF FACT 1. Service connection for the residuals of left eye trauma was denied by an unappealed rating action of November 2005. The Veteran was notified and did not appeal. 2. Evidence received since that final rating action is cumulative and redundant and does not provides a possible basis of substantiating the claim. CONCLUSION OF LAW New and material evidence has not been received since the last final rating action denying service connection for the residuals of left eye trauma and the claim is not reopened. 38 U.S.C. §§ 5108, 7105; 38 C.F.R. § 3.156. REASONS AND BASES FOR FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION The Veteran had a period of active duty service from June 1973 to June 1977. As new and material evidence has not been received, the claim entitlement to service connection for the residuals of left eye trauma is not reopened. VA may reopen and review a claim that has been previously denied if new and material evidence is submitted by or on behalf of a Veteran. 38 U.S.C. § 5108 (2012); 38 C.F.R. § 3.156(a) (2017); Hodge v. West, 155 F. 3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 1998). New evidence is evidence not previously submitted to agency decision makers. Material evidence is evidence that by itself, or when considered with previous evidence of record, relates to an unestablished fact necessary to substantiate the claim. New and material evidence can be neither cumulative nor redundant of the evidence of record at the time of the last final denial of the claim sought to be reopened, and must raise a reasonable possibility of substantiating the claim. 38 C.F.R. § 3.156(a) (2017). In determining whether new and material evidence has been received, VA must initially decide whether evidence associated with the claims file since the prior final denial is new and material. That analysis is undertaken by comparing newly received evidence with the evidence previously of record. Here, it is concluded that the evidence received is not new and material. For the singular purpose of determining whether new and material evidence has been submitted that is sufficient to reopen a claim, the credibility of the evidence is to be presumed. Justus v. Principi, 3 Vet. App. 510, 513 (1992). The United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (the Court) has endorsed a low threshold standard for reopening a claim. Shade v. Shinseki, 24 Vet. App. 110 (2010). At the time of the final rating decision in November 2005, the Veteran’s evidence of residuals for left eye trauma consisted of STRs, including his separation examination. It was held that the Veteran’s STRs reveal that the Veteran sustained an injury to his left eye in December 1974 when he walked into an airplane wing. An in-service examination found mild tenderness to the temporal part of his left orbit with no ocular trauma. The Veteran was diagnosed as negative for any detachment or retinal anomaly. A December 1974 orbital x-ray examination was negative. The Veteran was assessed as having a minor orbital contusion. On January 1975, the Veteran was noted as having reduced visual acuity in the left eye due to astigmatism. However, there is no evidence of left eye residuals following the injury to his eye in December 1974. The Veteran’s separation examination was silent for any residuals of his in-service eye trauma. The claims file also contained various private eye examinations between August 2000 and August 2004. Specifically, in an August 2000 private eye examination, the examiner diagnosed the Veteran with borderline glaucoma. The examiner questioned whether the Veteran’s left eye was consistent with being secondary to trauma. Lastly, the claims file contained an October 2005 VA eye condition C&P examination. The examiner diagnosed the Veteran with a minimal contusion of the left orbit with no treatment required. The examiner opined that the Veteran’s reduced visual acuity in his left eye is related to his eye astigmatic and not connected to his in-service left eye trauma. Since the last rating decision, the Veteran has submitted VA outpatient treatment records which diagnosed the Veteran with a cataract of the left eye and possible glaucoma. The evidence submitted does not relate the Veteran’s left eye diagnosis   to his time in-service. The evidence submitted is not probative and does not raise the possibility of substantiating an unestablished fact necessary to pursue the claim. Accordingly, the claim of entitlement to service connection for residuals of left eye trauma is not reopened. MICHAEL D. LYON Veterans Law Judge Board of Veterans’ Appeals ATTORNEY FOR THE BOARD M. Elliot Harris, Associate Counsel