2004 Alaska Statutes
Title 09 CODE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE
Chapter 09.65. ACTIONS, IMMUNITIES, DEFENSES, AND DUTIES
Sec. 09.65.260. Claims against persons engaged in business arising out of or in connection with the year 2000 date change.

(a) In a civil action based on a contract, a business or a member of the board of directors of a business is not liable for damages arising from the year 2000 date change and caused directly or indirectly by a failure of an electronic computing device used in the business if the business shows by a preponderance of the evidence that

(1) the business made substantial efforts to avoid the damages claimed in the civil action, such as

(A) inventorying the electronic computing devices used by the business that may experience year 2000 date change failures;

(B) identifying critical electronic computing devices necessary to conduct the operations of the business;

(C) identifying the potential for year 2000 date change failures associated with electronic computing devices used by the business;

(D) preparing a plan to reprogram, fix, repair, replace, or otherwise remedy the electronic computing devices necessary to avert failure resulting from the year 2000 date change;

(E) complying with generally accepted practices of a business sector related to the year 2000 date change, including testing information systems for compliance with the year 2000 date change; and

(F) developing contingency plans in the event of an electronic computing device failure; or

(2) the business used reasonable care to prevent or remedy damages arising from the year 2000 date change and caused directly or indirectly by a failure of an electronic computing device.

(b) The defense in (a) of this section may not be asserted by a business that develops or manufactures software, firmware, microcode, hardware, or embedded microchips that create, read, write, calculate, compare, sequence, or otherwise process data that consists of dates, times, or both dates and time if the business represented that the software, firmware, microcode, hardware, or microchips were year 2000 date change compliant. This subsection does not apply to a business that only sells, rents, or leases software, firmware, microcode, or hardware that is developed or manufactured by another person.

(c) A civil action based on a contract against a business, or member of the board of directors of a business, for damages arising from the year 2000 date change and caused directly or indirectly by a failure of an electronic computing device used in the business may not be brought as a class action unless the aggregate claim of all members of the class for economic loss exceeds $150,000.

(d) In a civil action based on a contract against a business, or member of the board of directors of a business, for damages arising from the year 2000 date change and caused directly or indirectly by a failure of an electronic computing device used in the business,

(1) damages may not be awarded for noneconomic losses if the party bringing the claim is unable to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the party defending the claim knew, or should have known, that the failure of the electronic computing device would cause the damages claimed in the civil action;

(2) the civil action may not proceed to trial until the person bringing the action, if appropriate,

(A) provides, if able to do so, written notice to the business that describes the failure of the mechanism that contains an electronic computing device arising from the year 2000 date change; and

(B) gives the business the opportunity to fix the problem, including reasonable access to electronic computing devices or software affected by the failure described under (A) of this paragraph;

(3) a provision of this section that conflicts with a year 2000 date change provision contained in a valid and enforceable contract between the parties to the civil action may not be applied in that civil action.

(e) This section does not apply to a civil action against a business, or a member of the board of directors of a business, for damages for personal injury or wrongful death arising from the year 2000 date change and caused directly or indirectly by a failure of an electronic computing device.

(f) In this section,

(1) "business" means a person or a for profit or a nonprofit entity engaged in a trade, service, profession, or activity with the goal of receiving a financial benefit in exchange for the provision of services, goods, or other property;

(2) "electronic computing device" includes any computer hardware or software, a computer chip, an embedded chip, process control equipment, or other information system that is used to capture, store, manipulate, or process data;

(3) "year 2000 date change" includes processing date or time data from, into, and between the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, and leap-year calculations; in this paragraph, "processing" includes calculating, comparing, sequencing, displaying, and storing.