Title 15 — Commerce and TradeRelease 119-73not60
§6608 Duty to Mitigate
Title 15 › Chapter 92— YEAR 2000 COMPUTER DATE CHANGE › § 6608
Summary
People suing over Y2K problems cannot get money for harms they could reasonably have avoided once they knew, or should have known, how to prevent or fix the problem. That includes steps or warnings the defendant gave to buyers or users about avoiding the Y2K failure. The duty to avoid damages is in addition to any similar state-law duty. But it does not apply if the defendant knowingly made a clear, important false statement about the device’s Y2K risk and the plaintiff reasonably relied on that lie.
Full Legal Text
Title 15, §6608
Commerce and Trade — Source: USLM XML via OLRC
(a)Damages awarded in any Y2K action shall exclude compensation for damages the plaintiff could reasonably have avoided in light of any disclosure or other information of which the plaintiff was, or reasonably should have been, aware, including information made available by the defendant to purchasers or users of the defendant’s product or services concerning means of remedying or avoiding the Y2K failure involved in the action.
(b)The duty imposed by this section is in addition to any duty to mitigate imposed by State law.
(c)Subsection (a) does not apply to damages suffered by reason of the plaintiff’s justifiable reliance upon an affirmative material misrepresentation by the defendant, made by the defendant with actual knowledge of its falsity, concerning the potential for Y2K failure of the device or system used or sold by the defendant that experienced the Y2K failure alleged to have caused the plaintiff’s harm.
Reference
Citations & Metadata
Citation
15 U.S.C. § 6608
Title 15 — Commerce and Trade
Last Updated
Apr 3, 2026
Release point: 119-73not60