The Year 2000 Liability Bill easily won approval from the US House yesterday, with 405 votes in favor and only 23 against. The IT industry had been lobbying hard to get the bill approved, worried that a flood of lawsuits would be filed against them over Y2K computer glitches. Lawyers were planning to unleash millennium bug actions that might have reached as much as $1 trillion according to some estimates, and which could have forced companies into bankruptcy.
Trial lawyers, and consumer advocates fiercely opposed the bill, which delays the filing of Y2K-related lawsuits by 90 days for a cooling off period, giving companies time to get the bugs fixed. Punitive damages have also been capped to $250,000 for small businesses. The Senate are also likely to approve the bill, some time this month, and White House Chief of Staff John Podesta has said he will recommend that the president signs the bill once it arrives on his desk. The legislation only applies to Y2K failures that occur before Jan. 1, 2003.
