Why aren all court cases heard only in the Supreme Court?
The basis for this is the constitutional concept of the federal courts. They are courts of limited jurisdiction and only hear cases that 1) involve federal questions or 2) that involve citizens/entites from different states (and these cases only if the amount in controversy equals a fairly large sum). That kicks out a large segment of cases from the beginning. At this point, a combination of the volume of cases and the desire to reserve pronouncements for cases having broad interst both come into play. The Supreme Court’s review is discretionary. They pick the cases they want. If–and this would never happen–some year, every case that people asked the high court to review had major importance to the country or legal system as a whole, they would take many more of them.
