Court dismisses Intuit Y2K suit

A Santa Clara Superior Court judge in California has dismissed all claims of damages and fraud in the Year 2000-related lawsuits filed against Intuit, including one that a judge had dismissed last August.

After that dismissal, the plaintiff, Alan Issokson, combined his case with two other California cases in a class-action suit, only to have it dismissed yet again this week.

The Issokson suit was filed over whether online banking functions in Quicken 5 and 6 for Windows, and versions 6 and 7 for the Macintosh properly addressed Y2K issues. According to a Y2K section on Intuit's Web site, the company acknowledges problems with some versions of Quicken.

"This is a significant victory for Intuit and validates our long-standing commitment to customers, including our commitment to ensuring that all our Quicken online banking customers are Year 2000 ready, " said Allison Hubbard-Colgin, senior corporate counsel for Intuit. "The court has slammed the door on all damage claims against Intuit by finding once again that no damages have occurred."

"While the plaintiffs are permitted to amend their suit on two causes, they cannot claim damages and we are confident that Intuit will continue to prevail," said Hubbard-Colgin.

Intuit said it will make free patches available for download and by other means to all Quicken online banking customers by June 1999 to make its software Y2K-compliant. The Web page also describes the Y2K status of various Quicken versions.

The California court decision follows a similar one in December by the Supreme Court of New York that dismissed three other New York suits against Intuit, which had been combined and which questioned whether some of the online banking functions in certain versions of Intuit's flagship Quicken personal finance software were clear of Y2K problems.

Intuit has always argued that no customers have been harmed because the software will work until the end of next year, and the company promises to have free fixes available by then.