An appeal... is when you ask one court to show its contempt for another court.

Dunne’s quip treats the appellate process not as a neutral search for legal truth but as an institutional rivalry. By defining an appeal as asking “one court to show its contempt for another,” he satirizes how higher courts can reverse or scold lower courts, and how litigants strategically seek a more favorable forum. The joke also hints at the hierarchical, prestige-driven nature of judicial systems: “contempt” is both a legal term and a social attitude. In Dunne’s broader Mr. Dooley-style commentary, the line functions as populist skepticism toward elite institutions, implying that justice can look like bureaucratic one-upmanship rather than principled adjudication.