Claim Raven explanation
What this means
This section authorizes dependency and indemnity compensation for a qualifying surviving spouse, child, or parent when a veteran dies from a service-connected or compensable disability. It generally applies the chapter 11 service-connection standards to the cause of death.
The statute requires a qualifying discharge from the period in which the death-causing disability was incurred or aggravated, unless the veteran died in active service. A payment under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act does not eliminate otherwise established DIC, although the specified payment is deducted from DIC.
How this helps your claim
A veteran's existing service-connected award can be important, but the central question is whether a service-connected or compensable disability caused or contributed to death under the applicable rules. Survivor relationship requirements remain separate.
What to check in your records
Compare the death evidence with the veteran's service-connected conditions and the decision's causal analysis.
- Obtain the death certificate and relevant terminal or autopsy records.
- Collect the veteran's rating decisions and medical evidence for implicated conditions.
- Confirm qualifying service, discharge, and the claimant's survivor relationship.
Focus the record on the medical cause of death
List the immediate and contributing causes shown on the death certificate, then identify the medical records addressing each. Compare those conditions with the veteran's service-connected disabilities and any supported presumptive or direct service-connection theory.
Avoid assuming that a total rating alone proves section 1310 causation. A separate route under section 1318 may apply in some long-term total-disability cases, but it has its own duration, marriage, and misconduct requirements.
Must the death certificate use the words 'service connected'?
No. The decision uses medical and other evidence to determine whether a service-connected or compensable disability caused or contributed to death. The death certificate is important evidence, but its wording is not the only part of the record.
Official statutory text
38 USC § 1310
OLRC release: pl-119-108. 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.
§ 1310. Deaths entitling survivors to dependency and indemnity compensation
(a) When any veteran dies after December 31, 1956, from a service-connected or compensable disability, the Secretary shall pay dependency and indemnity compensation to such veteran’s surviving spouse, children, and parents. The standards and criteria for determining whether or not a disability is service-connected shall be those applicable under chapter 11 of this title.
(b) Dependency and indemnity compensation shall not be paid to the surviving spouse, children, or parents of any veteran dying after December 31, 1956, unless such veteran (1) was discharged or released under conditions other than dishonorable from the period of active military, naval, air, or space service in which the disability causing such veteran’s death was incurred or aggravated, or (2) died while in the active military, naval, air, or space service.
(c) A person who receives a payment under the provisions of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 2210 note) shall not be deprived, by reason of the receipt of that payment, of receipt of dependency and indemnity compensation to which that person is otherwise entitled, but there shall be deducted from payment of such dependency and indemnity compensation the amount of the payment under that Act.
Related references
- 38 USC § 1110: Wartime disability compensation eligibility
- 38 USC § 1304: Marriage-duration rules for surviving-spouse DIC
- 38 USC § 1318: DIC for survivors of certain totally disabled veterans
- 38 USC § 5107: Benefit of the doubt in VA claims
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