SACRAMENTO - The Civil Justice Association of California today praised Congress for approving landmark legislation to limit frivolous Year 2000 computer lawsuits and urged the President to sign the bill despite personal injury lawyer protests.

"This bill will be a landmark, if signed," said John H. Sullivan, president of the Civil Justice Association of California. "It is the first time a legislative body has enacted a dramatic legal reform before the litigation industry has begun slamming victims wholesale."

Sullivan noted that seeds of the federal legislation were planted in California in 1997 when the Civil Justice Association of California (then called the Association for California Tort Reform) brought a diverse coalition of firms together to draft what was introduced in early 1998 as AB 1710 (Firestone and Cunneen). It was the first bill in any state or federal legislative body that comprehensively addressed potential Year 2000 lawsuits in the private sector.

"The federal 'Y2K Act' embodies the same themes we first advanced 18 months ago: Encourage people and companies to resolve Year 2000 problems through contract law, discourage big tort liability cases where the attorney fees are mammoth while the computer failures are minuscule, and don't disturb the ability of people with physical injuries to be compensated fully," Sullivan said. (More)

"It is ironic that Congress came through with a Y2K liability bill while the legislature in California, the world center of high tech, failed twice to enact a law to head off predatory Y2K lawsuits," he said. "California businesses should be happy for this federal bailout and everyone who worked for the legislation here should know their effort was not in vain."

With personal injury trial lawyers leading the opposition, Assembly Bill 1710 died in an April 21, 1998 committee hearing, despite strong supporting testimony by Intel assistant general counsel Peter Detkin. Weeks later AB 1710's language was picked up in H.R. 4240, a bill introduced in Congress by California House members David Dreier and Christopher Cox. Barbara Wheeler, vice president - legislation of the Civil Justice Association of California, became chair of a national task force which developed principles for state and federal Year 2000 liability legislation and worked on the final federal bills.

Wheeler noted that the measure awaiting the President's signature has two significant provisions that were not part of the early work in California.

"The federal act says people and business should only be liable for their portion of any damages. This is a fair responsibility principle that Californians enacted in the 1980s for personal injury cases. The Y2K Act extends it to other kinds of damages," she said.

"Also, the federal act curbs abusive Year 2000 class action cases in both state and federal courts by preventing lawyers from concocting a massive lawsuit when a computer failure has had an insignificant effect on people. When there is a legitimate basis for a class action lawsuit, the new law would make the lawyers tell their clients early on how much the lawyers expect to take home in fees."

Wheeler said these are important precedents that should be extended to all liability cases.

Wheeler and Sullivan said they both have been optimistic since May 11 that President Clinton would sign a Year 2000 liability bill. That's the date of a White House letter to Congress in which the President's assistant Bruce Lindsey wrote: "...there is a legitimate concern that frivolous Y2K class actions could impose unjustified burdens on innocent victims."

"When the White House acknowledges victims of frivolous litigation, you know the system needs fixing," Sullivan said.