§ 98.002.Liability

The cause of action, and the second half of the first sentence is what gives it reach.

A defendant who engages in the trafficking of persons — or who intentionally or knowingly benefits from participating in a venture that traffics another person — is liable to the person trafficked for damages arising from the trafficking by the defendant or venture.

The beneficiary branch reaches beyond the trafficker. A person who did not traffic anyone but who intentionally or knowingly benefited from participating in a venture that did is liable for the same damages.

That is what makes the chapter useful against the businesses trafficking operates through — the hotel, the transport, the property, the platform — where the direct traffickers are unidentified, unreachable, or without assets.

Both elements are required for that branch: participation in the venture, and a knowing or intentional benefit from it. Providing services to a venture without knowledge is outside it.

Subsection (b) removes the criminal case as a defence entirely. It is not a defence that a defendant has been acquitted, has not been prosecuted or convicted, or has been convicted of a different offense or of a different type or class of offense for the same conduct.

The civil and criminal proceedings are independent, and the burdens differ. An acquittal establishes reasonable doubt, not the absence of the conduct.