The suit arose out of a Reagan Administration effort to pare Social Security disability rolls. The Secretary decided not to "acquiesce" in two Ninth Circuit decisions prohibiting termination of disability benefits unless a person's medical condition had improved. As a result, thousands of disabled people lost their benefits, most of them illegally. As the district court later found, "some who have unexpectedly lost benefits have already suffered deprivation of life's necessities, further illness, or even death from the very disabilities that the Secretary deemed them not to have."

Western Center and other legal services programs obtained an injunction requiring the Secretary to comply with Ninth Circuit disability decisions, and orders requiring the Secretary to restore benefits illegally withheld and make millions of dollars in retroactive benefit payments.