§ 99.002.Strict Liability for Damages Arising from Manufacture

One sentence, and the standard is the point: a person who manufactures methamphetamine is strictly liable for damages for personal injury, death, or property damage arising from the manufacture.

Strict liability means no fault need be shown. A claimant proves the manufacture and the resulting damage; negligence, knowledge, and intent are irrelevant.

Texas imposes strict liability rarely — for defective products under the products liability chapter, and for abnormally dangerous activities at common law. Manufacturing methamphetamine is placed in that category by statute.

All three heads of damage are covered: personal injury, death, and property damage. The property damage element is what makes the chapter useful to landlords and purchasers, whose loss is the cost of decontaminating or demolishing a building.

"Arising from the manufacture" is the causal link, and it is broad enough to cover the fire, the explosion, the chemical exposure, and the residue left behind.

The chapter reinforces this section at three points: exposure carries minimum damages, liability is joint and several, and both the proportionate responsibility chapter and the exemplary damages cap are expressly disapplied. Little of the ordinary tort apparatus survives.