gavra:
Why would you grant someone the status of unquestionable Torah wisdom until proven wrong? I was working under the assumption that a Talmid Chacham can tell you what he thinks the Torah position on a matter would be and considering that he has quite a bit of Torah knowledge, it is very likely that he is right. So unless I had a specific reason to think that he is wrong in a given situation (e.g. I think that he doesn’t know the metzius) it makes sense to follow him. But to unilaterally declare his opinion to be THE TORAH”S POSITION? I think not. Therefore if he is wrong once it doesn’t make any difference (provided that his mistake was not something that calls into question his basic ability to make an informed decision).