§ 99.003.Strict Liability and Minimum Damages for Exposure

A minimum damages provision for exposure, and the alternative is what gives it force.

A manufacturer is strictly liable for any exposure by an individual to the manufacturing process — including exposure to the methamphetamine itself or any of the byproducts or waste products incident to the manufacture — for the greater of:

actual damages for personal injury, death, or property damage; or $20,000 for each incident of exposure.

The $20,000 floor solves a proof problem. Exposure to the chemicals used in this manufacture — solvents, acids, and reactive compounds — carries real risk, but demonstrating that a particular exposure caused a particular illness is difficult and frequently impossible.

Without a minimum, a person exposed in a contaminated building would prove the exposure and recover nothing.

"Each incident of exposure" is the multiplier. Repeated exposure — a tenant living in a contaminated unit, a child in a house where manufacturing occurred — produces multiple incidents rather than one.

The coverage is broad: the manufacturing process itself, the drug, and any byproducts or waste products incident to the manufacture. The waste is often the greater hazard, since it is dumped or left in place.

Read with the disapplication of the exemplary damages cap, the chapter contemplates awards that are substantial and largely unconstrained.