I think poster above is right, certainly with respect to the legal system in the USA. In the USA you often get one direct appeal - an appeal by right - and the

I think poster above is right, certainly with respect to the legal system in the USA. In the USA you often get one direct appeal - an appeal by right - and then if that fails, a discretionary appeal by a more superior court. I've seen some bone-headed decisions made by the trial judge, then the same error made by the appellate judges, and you know the superior court would reverse, but they only take 0.01% of the cases they see every year and so they just don't have time to fix every mistake. So some really stupid legal decisions become "the law of the case" simply because society doesn't have the funds to pay more judges to check the work of lesser judges.