Miller v. Shalala

In August 1990, James D. Miller (plaintiff) applied for child’s disability benefits at the age of 34, alleging he became disabled while he was a dependent child of an insured wage earner. The same year, Miller was granted Social Security disability benefits based on his own earned income following an administrative-law judge’s (ALJ) decision that Miller suffered from a severe developmental disorder with borderline intellectual function. The ALJ concluded that Miller’s impairments prevented him from performing even unskilled entry-level work and that his disability onset was March 18, 1988. Before Miller’s last job as a dishwasher, breakfast cook, and janitor at a Ponderosa Steakhouse, he worked several janitorial and food-service jobs making over $300 per month for several years. Despite listing the same developmental disorder for his entitlement to child’s disability benefits, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala (defendant), denied Miller’s application for child’s disability benefits after finding Miller was not continuously disabled since before his twenty-second birthday. Miller sued the secretary in federal district court, filing a motion for summary judgment that Shalala incorrectly applied the continuous-disability test, and, in the alternative, her finding that Miller was not disabled was not supported by substantial evidence because his work was not competitive and gainful employment.