This is the third post in a series: “Five Ways to Establish Service-Connection” for a disease, injury or other medical condition that is used as the basis of a veteran’s claim for VA benefits. You can read the first entry by clicking here. You can read the second entry by clicking here.

This post – and no post on this website – is legal advice, is not meant to be legal advice, and certainly does not serve as a substitute for legal advice. Information is power, and we are providing this information to give you, the veteran, some power. This information is not widely or easily accessible to Veterans. It is best to consult with a lawyer familiar with VA Disability claims and benefits or a Veterans Service Organization to examine your particular case.

This post will discuss the second way to establish service-connection: Service Connection via aggravation to pre-existing injury. This type of service-connection should be used when you had a condition that pre-dated your military service, and your time in service made that condition worse. There are a couple of major roadblocks you will have to overcome in this type of claim.

The first is that your entrance physical will have to make some reference to the pre-existing condition. The VA gets the benefit of the doubt in this case – you are presumed to have been physically and mentally sound when you entered the service, unless your entrance physical states otherwise. For example, if you had an old basketball injury to your knee, and this wasn’t noted in your entrance physical, the VA is required to presume that the knee injury didn’t pre-exist your military service. In order to overcome that requirement, you will need “clear and unmistakeable” evidence that the condition pre-existed service.

A doctor’s declaration that she treated you for the hypothetical knee injury (discussed above) prior to service would, in all likelihood, be clear and unmistakeable evidence. What if the same doctor says that the knee injury pre-existed your military service, but has no record of treatment – probably not clear and unmistakeable evidence. How about if the doctor says that it is highly probably that the knee injury pre-existed service – again, probably not clear and unmistakeable evidence. There are other ways you can make this showing – you should discuss your claim with a Veteran Service Organization or a VA Benefits lawyer to discuss other approaches or strategies to meet this burden of proof.

Once you successfully show that you had the condition prior to your service, you have another obstacle to overcome – you have to show that your condition was made worse because of your military service. This requires showing a lot more than the occurrence of symptoms of the condition during service – you actually have to show that your condition got worse. Once you make that showing, however, the VA has a high burden to defeat your claim – they have to show clear and convincing evidence that the preservice disability did not increase in severity during service.

So how do you show that your condition actually worsened then? It’s not easy, and can be quite complex. I found a great posting that discusses the types of evidence that may be needed and illustrates the complexity of the process – click here to read the article at VA Watcdog.org. [One caveat - the preceding article also discusses secondary conditions, which are covered in a later post in this thread.] If your claim for VA benefits will be based on the aggravation of a pre-existing condition, a Veteran Service Organization or a VA Benefits lawyer may be able to help you establish direct service connection if your situation doesn’t fit the two “molds” above.

If you would like to consult with an attorney at Attig Law Firm that handles VA disability compensation claims, contact us to set up a free 30 minute consult. You can, of course, also contact any one of the many Veteran Service Organizations who may also be able to assist you.