I literally described how that impacts things: "The appellate process and the system of binding precedent goes with it serves to somewhat make things more consistent overall than individual trial court processes would when considered over a longer time and a larger number of cases".
I dunno, the fact that precedent is only binding when it is from a higher appellate court to a court subordinate to that appellate court isn't what I'd describe as "funny", just rather sensible.
> Thus precedents mean nothing
Not that I've seen any inconsistent legal ruling offered between the two cases. The fact that the broad outline of the case is similar doesn't mean the decisive legal questions are, but, yes, precedent from a trial court decision isn't binding (same or different court), only, at best, persuasive, and then only if it is a citable (published) decision in the first place, which most trial court decisions are not.
> Jury is free to give arbitrary decisions.
Well, no, the jury is "free" to give answers that the trial judge finds to be reasonably supported by the evidence to the questions the trial judge poses to the jury.
And that's not directly affected by precedent anyway, precedent only governs questions of law, not fact, and juries don't answer questions of law, only fact.
Lookup "jury nullification" if you're curious to learn more about juries giving arbitrary decisions.
Nullification only applies to criminal cases (the discussion here is about civil, not criminal, law) and only in one direction. Lookup "directed verdict of acquittal", "judgement as a matter of law", and "judgement non obstante veredicto".
I think what loaph is saying is that a jury, when making a decision, can make any decision it wants, without consequences (except in exceptional cases, e.g. jury tampering).
The jury might never get to actually make a decision, and a guilty verdict can be overruled by a judgment notwithstanding the verdict (or as a result of an appeal, etc.), but legally, when a jury has made a decision, they can't be punished for making it, even if they were unreasonable in reaching that verdict.
I wanted to point out that juries can make arbitrary decisions, nullification being a kind of example of this.