Citation Nr: 21076317
Decision Date: 12/23/21	Archive Date: 12/23/21

DOCKET NO. 15-15 147
DATE: December 23, 2021

REMANDED

Entitlement to service connection for bilateral hearing loss is remanded.

Entitlement to service connection for bilateral tinnitus is remanded.

REASONS FOR REMAND

The Veteran served on active duty from July 1976 to July 1979.

This appeal is before the Board of Veterans' Appeals (Board) from a September 2013 rating decision from a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Regional Office (RO) and in August 2021, the Veteran appeared and provided testimony before the undersigned Veterans Law Judge (VLJ) and transcript of that hearing is associated with the claims file.

After a review of the claims file the Board finds that a remand for further development is warranted prior to adjudication of the Veteran's claims.

Efforts to obtain service treatment records (STRs) must continue until it is determined that they do not exist or that further attempts to obtain them would be futile. The non-existence or unavailability of such records must be verified, and this should be documented for the record. Required notice must be provided to the Veteran and his representative.

In this case, although STRs and service personnel records were entered into the claims file, the only STRs appear to be the separation examination (which the July 2013 VA examination report erroneously identifies as the "induction audio exam")   the RO did not make a formal finding that any attempt to acquire the complete STRs would be futile and the VA never provided the Veteran or his representative notice of their efforts. Moreover, the Veteran has continually cited to his STRs as containing evidence of hearing loss that occurred in-service. See December 2013 NOD, May 2015 VA Form-9, August 2021 Board Hearing.

As such, considering the VA has not determined that to continue to attempt to acquire these records would be futile, the evidence of record indicates service treatment records may be missing from his file and, to the extent possible, any outstanding service treatment records should be requested upon remand. See Bell v. Derwinski, 2 Vet. App. 611, 613 (1992).

These matters are remanded for the following actions:

1. Attempt to obtain any additional service treatment records. All such efforts must clearly be documented in the claims file. Efforts to obtain these records must continue until it is determined that they do not exist or that further attempts to obtain them would be futile.

2. After the above is completed, required notice must be provided to the Veteran and his representative in accordance with 38 C.F.R. § 3.159(e).

3. After the above is completed, conduct any further development deemed necessary, including whether an new VA examination is required because of the misidentified evidence referenced above.

4.  Readjudicate the Veteran's claims.

                         [SIGNATURE ON NEXT PAGE]

 

JONATHAN B. KRAMER

Veterans Law Judge

Board of Veterans' Appeals

Attorney for the Board	Law Clerk, Tyler R. Masters

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.