## Facts

- Dwayne A. Moore served on active duty from May 1988 to February 1991.
- During service, Moore made superficial wrist lacerations and was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward at Tripler Army Medical Center from December 29, 1990, to January 3, 1991.
- A military psychiatrist recommended expeditious separation based on a severe personality disorder; Moore received a general medical discharge.
- Moore filed for service-connected psychiatric disability benefits in September 1992.
- The VA initially denied the claim but later granted service connection with a 10% rating effective September 16, 1992, relying in part on a 1996 VA examination characterizing the in-service episode as resolved.
- The Board increased Moore’s rating to 30% for January 27, 1997, to August 7, 2002, and 50% thereafter, but denied higher ratings for any period.
- The Veterans Court affirmed, concluding VA’s failure to obtain the Tripler service hospitalization records was not prejudicial because the records pre-dated the period relevant to the rating.
- Moore appealed to the Federal Circuit, challenging the duty-to-assist and prejudicial-error determinations.

## Issues

1. Whether VA violated its statutory and regulatory duty to assist by failing to obtain Moore’s identified service medical records (including Tripler hospitalization records) before determining the severity of his service-connected psychiatric disability.
2. Whether the Veterans Court erred in holding the failure to obtain those records was not prejudicial because they pre-dated the period for which an increased rating was sought.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit reversed the Veterans Court and remanded.
- The court held VA erred by not obtaining Moore’s service medical records before evaluating the severity of his psychiatric disability.
- The court held the Veterans Court’s no-prejudice determination was legally erroneous because it treated pre-period records as categorically irrelevant.

## Legal Principles

- VA must make reasonable efforts to obtain relevant records that a claimant adequately identifies and authorizes VA to obtain. (38 U.S.C. § 5103A(b)(1))
- In assigning a disability rating, VA must evaluate the disability in relation to its history and consider the whole recorded history. (38 C.F.R. § 4.1)
- Service medical records that pre-date a particular rating period can still be relevant to an increased-rating determination because they may inform the condition’s nature, severity, and progression.
- Prejudicial-error review must be case-specific; it cannot rest on a categorical assumption that older records are irrelevant. (38 U.S.C. § 7261(b)(2))

## Conclusion

The Federal Circuit required VA to obtain reasonably identified service medical records and rejected a categorical harmless-error rule that treated pre-rating-period records as irrelevant, remanding for reassessment of the psychiatric disability rating on a complete record.


Moore v. Shinseki, 555 F.3d 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2009)