Citation Nr: 21000479 Decision Date: 01/05/21 Archive Date: 01/05/21 DOCKET NO. 16-24 008A DATE: January 5, 2021 ORDER The appeal to reopen a claim for service connection for a right foot disability is granted. Service connection for a right foot disability (manifested by symptoms of chronic pain with functional impairment) is granted. FINDINGS OF FACT 1. The RO noted a January 1984 rating decision that denied service connection for a right foot condition. Available evidence does not show the decision was appealed. Evidence received since January 1984 includes, among other things, credible lay evidence supporting the Veteran’s claim. This evidence relates to unestablished facts necessary to substantiate the claim and is not cumulative or redundant. It also raises a reasonable possibility of substantiating the claim. 2. At his September 2020 Board hearing, the Veteran provided competent and credible testimony that (1) while on active duty in the Marine Corps, he and several other service members were moving a generator when the rear wheel of the vehicle the generator was on rolled over the back of his foot with such weight that it bent the metal plate inside the heel of the boot and the Veteran experienced a sharp pain in his heel (this testimony is consistent with and corroborated by contemporaneous service treatment records) and that (2) the pain he first experienced when his foot was injured during service has continued and worsened from the time of the injury until the present (this testimony is consistent with and corroborated by, for example, (a) the report of foot problems on the separation examination, and (b) the Veteran’s November 2011 statement that “to this day I have constant pain in the bottom of my right foot,” that it was worsening because he was “[h]aving sharp pains in the right foot at present for the last 6 months”); and the Veteran has provided competent and credibly lay statements that he has symptoms of chronic right foot pain with functional impairment. [The September 2013 negative VA opinion cannot be used as evidence here because the examiner’s failure to consider the Veteran’s competent and credible reports of pain persisting since service mean the opinion was based on an inaccurate factual premise.] CONCLUSIONS OF LAW 1. The January 1984 rating decision that denied service connection for a right foot disability became final. 38 U.S.C. § 7105; 38 C.F.R. § 20.1103. New and material evidence has been received and the claim may be reopened. 38 U.S.C. § 5108; 38 C.F.R. § 3.156. 2. Service connection for a right foot disability (manifested by symptoms of chronic pain with functional impairment) is granted. 38 U.S.C. §§ 1110, 1131, 5107; 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.102, 3.303, 3.304; see Saunders v. Wilkie, 886 F.3d 1356 (2018) (despite lack of a formal diagnosis, symptoms may count as a disability for Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) compensation purposes if they cause functional impairment); Reonal v. Brown, 5 Vet. App. 458, 461 (1993) (a medical opinion based on an inaccurate factual premise has no probative value). REASONS AND BASES FOR FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS The Veteran served on active duty from June 1979 to June 1983. These matters are before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board) on appeal from a September 2013 rating decision by the Columbia, South Carolina VA Regional Office. In September 2020, a hearing was held before the undersigned Veterans Law Judge. For the reasons outlined above, the appeals are granted. VICTORIA MOSHIASHWILI Veterans Law Judge Board of Veterans’ Appeals Attorney for the Board David Arritt, Associate Counsel The Board’s decision in this case is binding only with respect to the instant matter decided. This decision is not precedential and does not establish VA policies or interpretations of general applicability. 38 C.F.R. § 20.1303.