§ 98.006.Liberal Construction and Application

A construction directive with a stated purpose, and both halves are operative.

The chapter shall be liberally construed and applied to promote its underlying purpose to protect persons from human trafficking and provide adequate remedies to victims.

Note that it says construed and applied. The direction is not confined to reading ambiguous words — it reaches how the chapter operates in a particular case.

The direction matters because the chapter borrows its central definition from the Penal Code. Criminal statutes are ordinarily construed strictly in the defendant’s favour, and without this section a defendant could argue that the imported definition carries that strictness with it into the civil claim.

This says the opposite: within the civil chapter, the reading is liberal.

The two stated purposes are distinct. Protection is forward-looking and supports a broad reading of who is liable — which is where the shareholder and member liability provision does its work. Adequate remedies is backward-looking and supports a generous reading of what can be recovered.

"Adequate" is a deliberate word. It invites a court to ask whether a construction leaves a victim with a real remedy, which is the question the damages, joint and several liability, and confidential identity provisions are all addressing from different angles.

The compelled prostitution chapter carries an identical provision keyed to its own subject, and the intimate visual material chapter carries a version qualified by an exception for certain conduct.