Tag: Moderate

Single Judge Application; English, 30 Vet.App. at 352-53; the Board must explain what it understands the terms “slight” and “moderate” in DC 5257 to mean so that appellant will understand why he was evaluated as he was, and the Court can review the Board’s decision; the Board focused on “objective evidence” in the VA medical opinions to support its conclusion that appellant’s instability was only “slight.”35 We can’t tell whether the Board faithfully applied English v. Wilkie or merely recited its holding concerning the lack of a requirement of objective evidence. On remand, the Board must ensure that it does not inappropriately downgrade evidence of instability merely because it is subjective. We stress again that it is inappropriate to categorically favor objective evidence of instability over subjective evidence of that condition. English, 30 Vet.App. at 352-53;
Single Judge Application; Spellers v. Wilkie; the Court held in Spellers v. Wilkie, with respect to the diagnostic code for incomplete paralysis of the sciatic nerve, which also rates the condition based solely on the level of severity (i.e., mild, moderate, severe), the “lack of objective criteria for differentiating between the specified severity levels means that any evidence indicating severity of incomplete paralysis of the sciatic nerve is necessarily relevant to the schedular rating level.” 30 Vet.App. 211, 219 (2018) (emphasis omitted);