§ 77.002.Policy

A policy provision explaining the chapter's central choice.

It is important to the health and welfare of the people of this state that scientific knowledge, skills, and materials be available for the procedures of transplantation, injection, transfusion, or other transfer of human body parts. The imposition of strict liability on persons and organizations engaged in these procedures inhibits their availability.

The reasoning turns on what strict liability assumes. Products liability holds a seller responsible for a defective product without fault, on the theory that the seller chose to manufacture it, can control its quality, and can spread the cost.

None of that fits blood and tissue. A blood bank does not manufacture blood; it collects what donors have. Some risks — an undetectable infection in the window before it becomes detectable — cannot be engineered out at any cost.

Treating an unavoidably risky biological material as a defective product would make supplying it uninsurable, and the supply is what patients need.

The policy statement guides interpretation of the sections that follow, which remove strict liability, disapply the DTPA, and exclude the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness.

What remains is negligence, gross negligence, and intentional torts — fault-based liability for what the supplier did wrong.