highlighting veteran-friendly nature of VA adjudication process, and stating that when hearing examiner promised a medical examination but VA did not provide one, Board must explain in its decision why it “would not or need not provide the promised examination”
How later courts described this case
- highlighting veteran-friendly nature of VA adjudication process, and stating that when hearing examiner promised a medical examination but VA did not provide one, Board must explain in its decision why it “would not or need not provide the promised examination”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
KRAMER, Chief Judge,
concurring:
Assuming that, on remand, the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (Board) determines that there is no duty to assist the appellant by providing the medical examination in question, the Board should nevertheless address with an adequate statement of reasons or bases the following: whether the *237 hearing officer promised the appellant a VA examination (see Record at 169-72, 175-76); whether the hearing officer ,was authorized to promise an examination and, if so, whether that authorization could have been rescinded by another VA employee; whether the appellant reasonably relied to his detriment on the hearing officer’s statements; and, assuming that he could have reasonably relied on those statements, what is the significance of any such reliance in the context of this case. See Gilbert v. Derwinski, 1 Vet.App. 49, 56-57 (1990).