§ 98A.002.Liability

The cause of action, with three routes to liability and a list of arguments that are not available.

A defendant is liable to a victim if the defendant: engages in compelling prostitution with respect to the victim; knowingly or intentionally engages in promotion, online promotion, aggravated promotion, or aggravated online promotion of prostitution that results in compelling prostitution with respect to the victim; or purchases an advertisement that the defendant knows or reasonably should know constitutes promotion or aggravated promotion of prostitution, where publication results in compelling prostitution with respect to the victim.

The third route uses a "should know" standard, which is lower than the knowing or intentional requirement of the second. An advertiser cannot avoid liability by declining to look.

Subsection (b) removes six defences, in two groups.

About the defendant: that they are related to the victim by affinity or consanguinity, have been in a consensual sexual relationship with them, or have resided with them in a household; or that they paid or otherwise compensated the victim.

About the victim: that the victim voluntarily engaged in prostitution before or after the compelled prostitution occurred; or that the victim did not attempt to escape, flee, or otherwise terminate contact with the defendant at the time.

The last is the most significant. Not fleeing is the argument most often made against victims of coercive control, and it rests on an assumption about how a coerced person behaves that the Legislature rejected by statute.