What could ever go wrong if just got their support approved, no questions asked?

My wife is on disability.

We worked with an attorney to submit the application and go through the process. When she initially applied, she was denied, as I would guess most people are.

She gathered paperwork and submitted it for the appeal. We had a hearing scheduled, and on the day of the hearing, I took the day off work to take her into the city.

When we got to the lobby of the building, we walked up to the security desk told the guard where we were going. Without looking up he asked which one of us was applying for disability, but before we could answer he looked up and said, “oh. She is”, which seemed a bit unnecessary to me, but it gives you an idea of her situation.

So we get up to the office where the hearing would take place, and we check in, and there is a bit of confusion.  My wife's attorney goes to talk to them, and comes back to say that our hearing was cancelled.  He said he's waiting to talk to the judge to find out what's going on.

When the judge comes out, she apologizes and says someone was supposed to contact us to let us know the hearing was cancelled.  She said she had reviewed the paperwork and decided in my wife's favor so the hearing was unnecessary.

When the attorney told us, he said it was pretty amazing because the judge rejects *every* appeal.  He didn't want to tell us that before the hearing because he didn't want us to give up, but he said he wasn't expecting it to succeed.


Now, my wife submitted the same information in the initial application.  If that information was enough to convince the judge we didn't need to bother with the appeal hearing to approve her disability, why the hell was the initial application rejected?