The Y2KNEWSWIRE.COM Daily Report Daily Y2K news and analysis, free of charge. For a free subscription, click here for the main page. Democrats are fighting hard to block liability for a problem they claim doesn't exist.

When they balk at a $1000 / hour fee cap for lawyers handling Y2K cases, you know something's wrong here. The $1000 / hour fee cap was ultimately dropped, to the smiles of Democrats -- the party that wants to preserve the "rights" of citizens to sue companies over a problem they swear doesn't exist: Y2K.

At the same time, Republicans want to block the lawsuits, protecting companies that started late, lied to the public, and still don't stand a chance of getting fully compliant in time. The Republicans want to give companies all-out permission to steamroll their customers. Did the bank lose your $100,000 deposit? Too bad: you can't sue because it was a Y2K problem.

It's a monumental political battle that completely misses the most important point of all: getting compliant. The participants appear as self-serving scoundrels, working to do nothing but pad the pockets of their supporters. The Democrats see gold, and if they can get just a portion of that gold into the pockets of Y2K-dazzled lawyers, they know some of that money will come right back to them in the form of campaign donations.

Says Rep. David Bonior of Michigan, the second- ranking Democrat in the House, "This act would effectively strip consumers of their right to pursue justice in the courts...."

"Justice," of course, meaning "payment." Bonior is saying the public has a "right" to this payment as well, not mentioning that half that payment ends up in the hands of the lawyers. Look into Bonior's eyes and pull his right ear. You'll see jackpot symbols spin into place behind each eyeball.

WHO'S RIGHT? Only Senator Bennett and Rep. Horn and Morella in the House. Why are they right? Because they're still pounding home the importance of compliance. Everything else here is just a shell game. It's a distraction from the problem they don't want you to think about: the simple fact that no industry is compliant and over 99% of organizations are not compliant yet either.

CLINTON SAYS HE'LL VETO THE BILL Not surprisingly, President Clinton has threatened to veto the Republican-backed bill. While we can only speculate about his motives -- a desire to preserve the jackpot for trial lawyers, probably -- his public explanation will certainly be along the lines of "preventing fraud by companies" and so on.

But didn't the Clinton administration claim Y2K was solved? "No, they only claimed the government had it solved," you say. If so, that's a new one: the private sector can't do it, but government can. That's right: only your federal government can pull off the 90-day miracle required to go from somewhere under 50% compliance to 92% compliance without even spending the last half of the money. Worse yet, they're not even offering to share the secret with the private sector.

THE REAL LOSER: THE PUBLIC When this bill finally passes -- in whatever form -- the Democrats will claim they've finally done something to help solve Y2K. But they haven't. The public will end up the loser.

Only two things matter at this point:

Getting compliant

Getting prepared at the personal level

And on both points, the Clinton administration is silent. Personal preparedness? Forget it: it will cause a panic, they say. Achieving compliance? Already done, they say. There is no problem.

Then why fight the liability bill?

HERE'S THE TRUTH: Want to know what's really going on here? We'll tell you -- in non-politically-correct terms. Democrats see the jackpot and want to redirect money into lawyers' pockets. Republicans see a looming disaster and are frantically trying to shut the gates. Neither party has the gumption to stand up and say Y2K is a real problem. Yet they debate about the legal liability of this "fictitious" problem as if it were the most important thing in the world.

Think about this: the nation's business has been put aside to debate these "fictitious" Y2K liability limitations. If they are spending all this valuable time and money on a problem they truly believe doesn't exist, every single one of them ought to be fired.

So you're left with two options: either our elected representatives are deliberately wasting their time bickering over a non-issue while ignoring the serious legislative issues that desperately need to be covered... or they're not telling you the truth when they say, "Y2K is over." In both cases, we think, few of our elected representatives actually have the public interest in mind.

ONLY SEVEN MONTHS LEFT No matter what the outcome, the clock is ticking. Should a liability bill fail to be passed by 12/31/1999, the courts will explode with Y2K lawsuits. Justice? Forget it. There will be no justice, only a never-ending waiting line. The justice system will experience gridlock, essentially denying any form of justice to anybody.

These trials will be drawn-out and cumbersome due to the never-ending chain of interdependence. Whose fault was it, really? It will be nearly impossible to tell. The retailer will blame the manufacturer; the manufacturer will blame the suppliers; the suppliers will blame the transportation companies; the transportation companies will blame the oil industry; the oil industry will blame the hardware manufacturers... and it goes round and round until you get dizzy enough to experience a "Y2K pass-out."

Do you think the average American jury will be able to fathom all this? These are people who can't understand that a DNA match is statistically significant. These are people who award $480 million out of "pain and suffering" when a family gets over-billed for their satellite TV service. Are these people capable of understanding the intricacies of Y2K? Of course not. Get real.

BUT HERE'S THE BEST PART Trial lawyers will find themselves in court arguing that companies could have prevented this disaster. And yet the main thing in the way right now is the Democrats' insistence that Y2K isn't a problem at all!

We think that trial lawyers want this problem to explode. The bigger the problem, the more lawsuits they can file, and the more money they'll rake in at $1000+ / hour. Coincidental or otherwise, the federal government's cover-up of Y2K benefits these trial lawyers. The worse things get, the more money they make. SHOW ME THE MONEY!

THE LIKELY OUTCOME We predict a drawn-out battle over this legislation, and when it's all done, it will do little to solve the real problem: compliance and preparedness. The mainstream press, easily distracted by a political bloodbath, will continue missing the point: prepare, prepare, prepare.

We think this year will continue to roll along with 99% of the public doing nothing for Y2K. But behind the curtains, federal agencies and private companies will continue their desperate struggle to beat the clock. They'll be crossing and double-crossing their fingers, flinging electronic Hail Mary passes and quietly working to cover their rear ends. Meanwhile, legislators will continue to argue the finer points of liability limitations so their supporters (trial lawyers) can cash in on something they claim is mere illusion.

Friends, we have never lived in a more bizarre world. The 20th century, historians will tell you, was a century of insanity. How fitting that it ends with the most irrational actions we've witnessed yet...

When it's all said and done, generations from now, people will look back and wonder how we could all act so plain stupid. Hopefully, they'll read this feature story, because the answer is right here: we allowed stupidity to become acceptable.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), May 21, 1999

Answers

"To protect fools from the effects of their folly is to fill the world with fools." (paraphrase of Spencer quotation)

-- A (A@AisA.com), May 21, 1999.

So many assumptions, the prime one being that there will be a justice system functioning. imho, litigationous societies can only function in the full flower of easy money. And that has a high probability of being a thing of the past, post y2k.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), May 21, 1999.

It will be interesting to see what will have a greater financial/economic impact: the damages from the errors caused by the Y2k anomalies, or from the lawsuits filed from those who suffer from these anomalies.

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), May 21, 1999.

It is interesting that in the Gartner compliance reports the legal profession is dead last.
 
 

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-- Brian (imager@home.com), May 21, 1999.