Claim Raven explanation
What this means
This law generally treats an injury or disease incurred during qualifying active service as incurred in line of duty, subject to specified misconduct and service-status exceptions. Authorized leave can be included.
The statute focuses on the circumstances of the injury or disease. It does not mean that every condition diagnosed after service is automatically connected to service, and the exceptions must be examined using the actual facts.
How this helps your claim
If VA disputes line of duty, compare its explanation with the service findings and incident evidence. Identify whether the disagreement concerns service status, conduct, or the cause of the disability.
What to check in your records
Use your decision, examination reports, and relevant records to check the following points.
- Locate the service department's line-of-duty determination if one exists.
- Compare incident dates with active service or authorized-leave records.
- Identify the specific exception and supporting facts cited by VA.
Separate the service event from the later diagnosis
Line of duty concerns the circumstances in which an injury or disease occurred during qualifying service. The event's location, duty status and any applicable exception matter. Being away from a normal workplace is not by itself the same as being outside qualifying service.
Keep contemporaneous reports and service findings with the medical history. A later diagnosis raises an additional relationship question that this general presumption does not automatically answer. Distinguish evidence about the event from evidence connecting a current disability to it.
Does authorized leave always prevent a service-related finding?
No. The statute includes qualifying circumstances involving authorized leave. The actual facts and exceptions still need consideration. The practical point is that ordinary working hours or physical presence on a base are not substitutes for the statutory line-of-duty analysis.
Official statutory text
38 USC § 105
OLRC release through Public Law 119-102 (July 12, 2026). Layout and spacing are adapted for reading. The statutory text is shown here; publisher source credits and editorial notes remain in the linked official release.
§ 105. Line of duty and misconduct
(a) An injury or disease incurred during active military, naval, air, or space service will be deemed to have been incurred in line of duty and not the result of the veteran’s own misconduct when the person on whose account benefits are claimed was, at the time the injury was suffered or disease contracted, in active military, naval, air, or space service, whether on active duty or on authorized leave, unless such injury or disease was a result of the person’s own willful misconduct or abuse of alcohol or drugs. Venereal disease shall not be presumed to be due to willful misconduct if the person in service complies with the regulations of the appropriate service department requiring the person to report and receive treatment for such disease.
(b) The requirement for line of duty will not be met if it appears that at the time the injury was suffered or disease contracted the person on whose account benefits are claimed (1) was avoiding duty by deserting the service or by absenting himself or herself without leave materially interfering with the performance of military duties; (2) was confined under sentence of court-martial involving an unremitted dishonorable discharge; or (3) was confined under sentence of a civil court for a felony (as determined under the laws of the jurisdiction where the person was convicted by such court).
(c) For the purposes of any provision relating to the extension of a delimiting period under any education-benefit or rehabilitation program administered by the Secretary, the disabling effects of chronic alcoholism shall not be considered to be the result of willful misconduct.
Related references
- 38 USC § 5107: Benefit of the doubt in VA claims
- 38 CFR § 3.159: VA duty to assist: records and examinations
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