Is the Attorney General's claim that the Court of Appeal has concluded that the Plaintiff's claim is foreclosed as law of the case?

The Attorney General responds that this reiterated claim is foreclosed as law of the case. We agree. " ' "The doctrine of the law of the case is this: That where, upon an appeal, the [reviewing] court, in deciding the appeal, states in its opinion a principle or rule of law necessary to the decision, that principle or rule becomes the law of the case and must be adhered to throughout its subsequent progress, both in the lower court and upon subsequent appeal, and, as here assumed, in any subsequent suit for the same cause of action, and this although in its subsequent consideration this court may be clearly of the opinion that the former decision is erroneous in that particular." ' " (People v. Stanley (1995) 10 Cal.4th 764, 786.) There are very limited exceptions: "the doctrine will not be adhered to where its application will result in an unjust decision, e.g., where there has been a 'manifest misapplication of existing principles resulting in substantial injustice' [citation], or the controlling rules of law have been altered or clarified by a decision intervening between the first and second appellate determinations [citation]. The unjust

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