This turns the law into a guessing game for those who want to be law-abiding citizens and into an instrument of extortion for those who are litigious.
He also notes, though, that
Believers in judicial restraint face a major dilemma because such restraint applies both to following the laws as written and respecting legal precedents. Both these things make the law predictable -- without which it is not really law but just a set of arbitrary edicts, and courts are just places from which lightning can strike anyone without warning at any time.
I have encountered erstwhile like-minded people who refuse to recognize this benefit to stare decisis; few decisions in law are so bad as to be worse than the ambiguity they replace.
