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Why do appellate courts hear fewer cases than trial courts?
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Judge's bench in a courtroom in Nevada, U.S.
Appellate courts hear fewer cases than trial courts primarily because appellate review is not an automatic process. Instead, it must be initiated by a party who is aggrieved by the judgment rendered in a lower court.1
Several factors contribute to this disparity:
- Cost and Utility: Pursuing an appeal can be both expensive and potentially useless, discouraging many litigants from seeking further review after a trial court decision.1
- Legal Constraints: In many jurisdictions, only final judgments may be appealed, while appeals from interlocutory decrees—decisions that settle only subsidiary questions—are significantly more restricted.2
- Discretionary Review: While intermediate appellate courts are often obligated to hear cases, high courts (such as supreme courts) are typically not required to hear any particular case. Consequently, these high courts issue decisions in only a tiny fraction of the cases appealed to them.1
- Successive Appeals: When multiple levels of appellate review are available, the number of cases decreases at each successive stage, resulting in far fewer second appeals than first appeals.1