Citation Nr: 18157195
Decision Date: 12/12/18	Archive Date: 12/11/18

DOCKET NO. 18-05 317
DATE:	December 12, 2018
ORDER
New and material evidence having not been received, the petition to reopen a previously denied claim of entitlement to service connection for cerebral hemorrhage (also claimed as strokes) is denied.
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. A January 2016 Board decision denied entitlement to service connection for cerebral hemorrhage, finding that the weight of the evidence did not demonstrate that the Veteran’s current disability began in or is etiologically related to military service.
2. The evidence received since the January 2016 Board decision is cumulative and does not raise a reasonable possibility of substantiating the claim of service connection for cerebral hemorrhage.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. The January 2016 Board decision denying service connection for cerebral hemorrhage is final. 38 U.S.C. § 7104; 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.105 (a), 20.1104.
2. The additional evidence received since the January 2016 Board decision is not new and material, and the claim of service connection for cerebral hemorrhage is not reopened. 38 U.S.C. § 5108; 38 C.F.R. § 3.156.
REASONS AND BASES FOR FINDING AND CONCLUSION
The Veteran served on active duty from August 1968 to August 1971.
This case comes before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board) on appeal from an April 2016 rating decision, which declined to reopen the Veteran’s claim for service connection for cerebral hemorrhage.
In December 2017, the Board, inter alia, remanded the claim on appeal for further development, to include providing the Veteran with a statement of the case (SOC). The Board finds that there was substantial compliance with its remand instructions in this regard. See Stegall v. West, 11 Vet. App. 268, 271 (1998); see also Donnellan v. Shinseki, 24 Vet. App. 167, 176 (2010) (“It is substantial compliance, not absolute compliance, that is required” under Stegall).
Generally, a claim which has been finally denied in an unappealed RO decision or an unappealed Board decision may not thereafter be reopened and allowed. 38 U.S.C. §§ 7104, 7105. However, if new and material evidence is presented or secured with respect to a claim which has been disallowed, the Secretary shall reopen the claim and review the former disposition of the claim. 38 U.S.C. § 5108.
New evidence is defined as existing evidence not previously submitted to VA, and material evidence is defined as existing 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 prior 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).
The claim for service connection for cerebral hemorrhage was initially denied in a September 2014 rating decision that was then upheld in an unappealed January 2016 Board decision on the basis that the evidence did not demonstrate that the Veteran’s cerebral hemorrhage began in or is otherwise related to military service. As the appellant did not file a notice of appeal, the Board’s decision is final. 38 U.S.C. § 7104.
New evidence since the January 2016 Board decision includes VA treatment records. The VA treatment records associated with claims file since the January 2016 Board decision do not include any new evidence material to the basis for the prior denial, namely whether the Veteran’s cerebral hemorrhage began in or is otherwise related to military service. 
As new and material evidence has not been received since the January 2016 Board decision, the claim to reopen is denied.
 
ERIC S. LEBOFF
Veterans Law Judge
Board of Veterans’ Appeals
ATTORNEY FOR THE BOARD	Hammad Rasul, Associate Counsel