Terms Used In Michigan Laws > Chapter 3 > Act 515 of 2012 > Article III

• Advice and consent: Under the Constitution, presidential nominations for executive and judicial posts take effect only when confirmed by the Senate, and international treaties become effective only when the Senate approves them by a two-thirds vote.
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Aquatic plant: means a submergent, emergent, obligate wetland, facultative wetland, or floating-leaf plant or a fragment thereof, including a seed or other propagule. See Michigan Laws 324.41301
• Clerk: means the clerk of a township elected under chapter XVI of Act No. See Michigan Laws 41.1b
• Collecting sewers: means lateral, branch, submain, and trunk sewers consisting of pipes or conduits including pumps, lift stations, force mains, and other appurtenances necessary for a system to prevent or eliminate discharges of raw or inadequately treated sewage of human origin into any waters of the state. See Michigan Laws 324.4901
• Commission: means the commission of natural resources. See Michigan Laws 324.301
• Conservation easement: means an interest in land that provides limitation on the use of land or a body of water or requires or prohibits certain acts on or with respect to the land or body of water, whether or not the interest is stated in the form of a restriction, easement, covenant, or condition in a deed, will, or other instrument executed by or on behalf of the owner of the land or body of water or in an order of taking, which interest is appropriate to retaining or maintaining the land or body of water, including improvements on the land or body of water, predominantly in its natural, scenic, or open condition, or in an agricultural, farming, open space, or forest use, or similar use or condition. See Michigan Laws 324.2140
• Construction: means the engineering, architectural, legal, fiscal, and economic investigations and studies, surveys, designs, plans, working drawings, specifications, procedures, and other similar actions necessary to the construction of collecting sewers; the installation, erection, and building of collecting sewers; and the inspection and supervision of the construction of such sewers. See Michigan Laws 324.4901
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Department: means the director of the department of natural resources or his or her designee to whom the director delegates a power or duty by written instrument. See Michigan Laws 324.301
• Department of natural resources: means the principal state department created in section 501. See Michigan Laws 324.301
• Director: means the director of the department of natural resources. See Michigan Laws 324.301
• Discharge: means spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, or dumping. See Michigan Laws 324.9501
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Fair market value: The price at which an asset would change hands in a transaction between a willing, informed buyer and a willing, informed seller.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Genetically engineered: refers to an organism whose genome, chromosomal or extrachromosomal, is modified permanently and heritably, using recombinant nucleic acid techniques, or the progeny of such an organism. See Michigan Laws 324.41301
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• Historic preservation easement: means an interest in land that provides a limitation on the use of a structure or site that is listed as a national historic landmark under chapter 593, 49 Stat. See Michigan Laws 324.2140
• in writing: shall be construed to include printing, engraving, and lithographing; except that if the written signature of a person is required by law, the signature shall be the proper handwriting of the person or, if the person is unable to write, the person's proper mark, which may be, unless otherwise expressly prohibited by law, a clear and classifiable fingerprint of the person made with ink or another substance. See Michigan Laws 8.3q
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Litter: means any of the following: