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There is no significant fiscal implication to the State or local government.
The bill would amend the Civil Practice and Remedies Code to make a shareholder or member of a
business entity liable with the business entity for damages arising from human trafficking if the
shareholder or member of the business entity caused the business entity to be used for human
trafficking and engaged in these practices for the direct person benefit of the shareholder or
member from this trafficking.
The purpose of this bill is to provide legal recourse to victims of human trafficking to hold the actual individual responsible for engaging in the offense, rather than being unable to do so because corporate entities act as a shield to the offenders. This affirms individual liberty for the victims.
The bill may be just vague enough to place shareholders of a company under civil liability for something they had no idea was going on in a company they happened to be a shareholder of but had no operational responsibility for. In order to protect innocent shareholders from civil liability, this legislation could be strengthened with some additional language.
The bill is worded so that a plaintiff would have to demonstrate "that the shareholder or member caused the entity to be used for the purpose of trafficking that person and did traffic that person for the direct personal benefit of the shareholder or member"
An amendment to add the word "knowingly" between the word's "member" and "caused" in the quoted text above would help to prevent people from being wrongly held civilly liable.