§ 149.001.Definitions

Five definitions, drawn expansively so the cap cannot be avoided by characterisation.

"Asbestos claim" means any claim, wherever or whenever made, for damages, losses, indemnification, contribution, or other relief arising out of or in any way related to asbestos — including property damage from installation, presence or removal; the health effects of exposure, covering personal injury, death, mental or emotional injury, risk of disease, and medical monitoring or surveillance costs; and claims by relatives of an exposed person.

The breadth is the point. Contribution and indemnification claims are named because much asbestos exposure reaches a corporation through another defendant rather than directly.

"Successor asbestos-related liabilities" covers liabilities known or unknown, asserted or unasserted, absolute or contingent, accrued or unaccrued, liquidated or unliquidated, or due or to become due, related to asbestos claims assumed or incurred in connection with a merger or consolidation, or based on the exercise of control or ownership of stock before it.

That string of pairs is doing real work. The whole difficulty of asbestos liability is latency — disease appears decades after exposure, so the liabilities a corporation assumed in a 1960s merger were unknown, unasserted, contingent and unaccrued at the time.

The definition also captures amounts already paid after the valuation date, which matters for the running total the cap is measured against.

"Successor" and "transferor" are the two sides of the merger, and "corporation" covers both domestic and foreign for-profit corporations.