Claim Raven explanation
What this means
The Board must remand qualifying pre-decision duty-to-assist errors when the issue cannot be fully granted, and it may remand certain other statutory or regulatory errors under the stated conditions.
A remand sends the issue back for specified work. It does not itself establish entitlement or mean every possible evidence-development request must be granted. The timing and nature of the error matter.
How this helps your claim
Identify what VA should have done before the decision and where the record showed that need. After a remand, compare the completed development with the Board's actual instructions.
What to check in your records
Use your decision, examination reports, and relevant records to check the following points.
- Locate evidence showing the development need before the agency decision.
- Read each action required by the remand.
- Check the later examination, records development, and new decision against those instructions.
Connect the error to the period before the decision
Modernized remand for a duty-to-assist error concerns the qualifying error and its timing. Identify what the agency should have addressed before the appealed decision, using the record and notices from that period. A later desire for more evidence is not automatically the same issue.
Read the remand instructions as specific work to be completed. Keep them with the resulting examination, records request and new decision. This makes it possible to check whether the identified problem was corrected without assuming that every remand requires every kind of additional development.
Does any missing document require the Board to remand?
No. The nature of the error, its timing and the regulation's conditions matter. The Board's record rules and duty-to-assist framework must be considered together. A document being useful does not alone establish a qualifying pre-decision error or a required remand.
Official regulatory text
38 CFR § 20.802
eCFR snapshot: September 3, 2026. Layout and spacing are adapted for reading. The full section and its tables are included below.
§ 20.802 Rule 802. Remand for correction of error.
(a) Remand. Unless the issue or issues can be granted in full, the Board shall remand the appeal to the agency of original jurisdiction for correction of an error on the part of the agency of original jurisdiction to satisfy its duties under 38 U.S.C. 5103A, if the error occurred prior to the date of the agency of original jurisdiction decision on appeal. The Board may remand for correction of any other error by the agency of original jurisdiction in satisfying a regulatory or statutory duty, if correction of the error would have a reasonable possibility of aiding in substantiating the appellant's claim. The remand must specify the action to be taken by the agency of original jurisdiction.
(b) Advisory Medical Opinion. If the Board determines that an error as described in paragraph (a) of this section may only be corrected by obtaining an advisory medical opinion from a medical expert who is not an employee of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Board shall remand the case to the agency of original jurisdiction to obtain such an opinion, specifying the questions to be posed to the independent medical expert providing the advisory medical opinion.
(c) Action by agency of original jurisdiction after receipt of remand. After correction of any error identified in the Board's remand, the agency of original jurisdiction must readjudicate the claim and provide notice of the decision under 38 U.S.C. 5104, to include notice under 38 U.S.C. 5104C of a claimant's options for further review of the agency of original jurisdiction's decision. The agency of original jurisdiction must provide for the expeditious treatment of any claim that is remanded by the Board.
(Authority: 38 U.S.C. 5103A, 5109, 5109B, 7102, 7104(a), 7105)
[84 FR 188, Jan. 18, 2019]
Related references
- 38 USC § 5103A: VA's Duty to Assist With Evidence
- 38 USC § 5104: What a VA Decision Letter Must Explain
- 38 USC § 5104C: Choosing a VA Decision Review Option
- 38 CFR § 3.2400: Modernized and Legacy VA Appeals Explained
- 38 CFR § 3.159: VA duty to assist: records and examinations
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