Terms Used In Tennessee Code > Title 4 > Chapter 55 - Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance

• Affidavit: A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.
• 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.
• any prior fiscal year: means any fiscal year beginning on or after July 1, 1984. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Appellate: About appeals; an appellate court has the power to review the judgement of another lower court or tribunal.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Appraisal ratio: means the ratio of appraised values of record to one hundred percent (100%) of current values that are to be derived in accordance with applicable state law for use in ad valorem property tax determinations each tax year. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Assessment ratio in effect: means that assessment ratio being applied by the comptroller of the treasury in assessing electric system property of electric cooperatives and electric membership corporations for ad valorem taxation or, if such assessment function ceases to be performed by the comptroller of the treasury, that assessment ratio applied by any authorized department, agency, comptroller of the treasury, or official of the state empowered to so apply such an assessment ratio in assessing electric system property of electric cooperatives and electric membership corporations. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Automobile club or association: as used in this chapter , means any individual or entity, who in consideration of fees, dues, periodic payments, or other specifically stated charges, promises its members to provide automobile club services. See Tennessee Code 55-18-101
• Bail: Security given for the release of a criminal defendant or witness from legal custody (usually in the form of money) to secure his/her appearance on the day and time appointed.
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Bequest: Property gifted by will.
• Buying and selling service: means any act by an automobile club or association whereby the member of any automobile club or association is aided in any way in the purchase or sale of an automobile or the purchase or sale of any accessories or equipment related to automobiles or travel, or any purchase of travel services. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Chauffeur: means every person who is employed by another for the principal purpose of driving a motor vehicle and every person who drives a school bus transporting school children or any motor vehicle when in use for the transportation of persons or property for compensation. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Code: includes the Tennessee Code and all amendments and revisions to the code and all additions and supplements to the code. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Commissioner: means the commissioner of revenue. See Tennessee Code 55-1-111
• Commissioner: means the commissioner of commerce and insurance. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• 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.
• Dealer: means every person engaged in the business of buying, selling or exchanging vehicles of a type required to be registered and who has an established place of business for that purpose in this state. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Deposition: An oral statement made before an officer authorized by law to administer oaths. Such statements are often taken to examine potential witnesses, to obtain discovery, or to be used later in trial.
• Discount service: means any act by an automobile club or association resulting in the giving of special discounts, rebates or reductions of price on gasoline, oil, repairs, parts, accessories or service for motor vehicles or other goods and services, to members of any automobile club or association. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Dismissal: The dropping of a case by the judge without further consideration or hearing. ^Source:
• Docket: A log containing brief entries of court proceedings.
• Driver: means :
  (A) For purposes of a conventionally operated vehicle, every person who drives or is in actual physical control of a vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Electric operations: means all activities associated with the establishment, development, and administration of an electric system and the business of supplying electricity and associated services to the public, including, but not limited to, the generation, purchase, and sale of electric energy and the purchase, use and consumption of electric energy by ultimate consumers. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Electric system: means all tangible and intangible property and resources of every kind and description used or held for use in the purchase, generation, transmission, distribution, and sale of electric energy. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Emergency road service: means any act by an automobile club or association consisting of the fuel delivery, extrication, lockout service, repair, replacement or other adjustment of the equipment, tires or mechanical parts of an automobile so as to permit it to be operated under its own power. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
• 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.
• Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
• Executor: includes an administrator, where the subject matter applies to an administrator. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Financial service: means any act by an automobile club or association whereby loans or other financial services such as stored value cards, deposit products, or advances of money, with or without security, are made or provided to or arranged for members of any automobile club association. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• 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.
• Fiscal year: means the year beginning July 1 of each calendar year. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. ^{Source: OCC}
• 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.
• Highway: means the entire width between the boundary lines of every way when any part thereto is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Insurance service: means the selling or giving by an automobile club or association to a member of a policy of accident insurance covering liability or loss by a member as the result of death or personal injury or loss of or damage to the personal property of the member, or the selling of a hospital indemnity policy. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Intangible property: Property that has no intrinsic value, but is merely the evidence of value such as stock certificates, bonds, and promissory notes.
• Intestate: Dying without leaving a will.
• 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.
• Lands: includes lands, tenements and hereditaments, and all rights thereto and interests therein, equitable as well as legal. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• 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}
• Legal service: means any act by an automobile club or association consisting of the hiring, retaining, engaging or appointing of an attorney or other person to give professional advice to, or represent, a member of any automobile club or association, in any court, as the result of liability incurred by the right of action accruing to the member as a result of the ownership, operation, use or maintenance of a motor vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Legatee: A beneficiary of a decedent
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Map service: means any act by an automobile club or association by which road maps are furnished with or without cost to members of any automobile club or association. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Metropolitan government: means the political entity created by consolidation of all, or substantially all, of the political and corporate functions of a county and a city or cities. See Tennessee Code 7-1-101
• Minor: means any person who has not attained eighteen (18) years of age. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
• Motor vehicle: as used in this chapter , includes all vehicles propelled by any power other than muscular power, except traction engines, road rollers, fire and police vehicles, ambulances, agricultural tractors, tractor cranes, steam shovels, road building machinery, electric trucks with small wheels used in factories, warehouses, and railroad stations and operated principally on private property, and such vehicles run only upon rails or tracks. See Tennessee Code 55-15-103
• Municipality: means any incorporated city or town, metropolitan government, or county that now or hereafter owns and operates an electric system and buys all or part of its power requirements for resale and distribution from the Tennessee Valley authority. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Net plant value of the electric plant: means the depreciated original cost of the electric plant, in service and held for future use, and the book value of construction work in progress, all as shown on the books of the electric system and all of which are for use in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Operator: means :
  (A) For purposes of a conventionally operated vehicle, every person, other than a chauffeur, who drives or is in actual physical control of a motor vehicle upon a highway or who is exercising control over or steering a vehicle being towed by a motor vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Other services: means additional services furnished by an automobile club or association which augment or are incidental to any service performed by the automobile club or association as authorized under this chapter or any other service which is of assistance and is beneficial to its members and is feasible for the automobile club to render. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Owner: means a person who holds the legal title of a vehicle, or in the event a vehicle is the subject of an agreement for the conditional sale or lease thereof, with the right of purchase upon performance of the conditions stated in the agreement and with an immediate right of possession vested in the conditional vendee or lessee, or in the event a mortgagor of a vehicle is entitled to possession, then the conditional vendee or lessee or mortgagor shall be deemed the owner for the purpose of this chapter and chapter 10, parts 1-5 of this title. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Person: means a natural person, firm, copartnership, association, corporation, or an engaged ADS. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Personal property: includes money, goods, chattels, things in action, and evidences of debt. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Personal representative: when applied to those who represent a decedent, includes executors and administrators, unless the context implies heirs and distributees. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Plea: In a criminal case, the defendant's statement pleading "guilty" or "not guilty" in answer to the charges, a declaration made in open court.
• Pleadings: Written statements of the parties in a civil case of their positions. In the federal courts, the principal pleadings are the complaint and the answer.
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Private act: includes , without limitation, the charter and any amendments to the charter of any home rule municipality or any metropolitan government. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Probate: Proving a will
• Probate court: means the court having jurisdiction over the administration of the estates of decedents. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Property: includes both personal and real property. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• Railroad: means a carrier of persons or property upon cars, other than streetcars, operated upon stationary rails. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Record: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in a perceivable form. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Recourse: An arrangement in which a bank retains, in form or in substance, any credit risk directly or indirectly associated with an asset it has sold (in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles) that exceeds a pro rata share of the bank's claim on the asset. If a bank has no claim on an asset it has sold, then the retention of any credit risk is recourse. ^{Source: FDIC}
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Remainderman: One entitled to the remainder of an estate after a particular reserved right or interest, such as a life tenancy, has expired.
• Reporter: Makes a record of court proceedings and prepares a transcript, and also publishes the court's opinions or decisions (in the courts of appeals).
• Road: includes public bridges and may be held equivalent to the words "county way" "county road" or "state road". See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Semitrailer: means every vehicle with or without motive power, other than a pole trailer, designed for carrying persons or property and for being drawn by a motor vehicle and so constructed that some part of its weight and that of its load rests upon or is carried by another vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Service of process: The service of writs or summonses to the appropriate party.
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Statute of limitations: A law that sets the time within which parties must take action to enforce their rights.
• Street: means the entire width between boundary lines of every way when any part thereof is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Supervisory body: means any board or other agency of a municipality established to supervise the management and operation of its electric system and electric operations, or, in the absence of a board or other agency, the governing body of the municipality. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Taxing jurisdiction: means any county, incorporated city or town, or metropolitan government in Tennessee having the power to levy taxes, or any special taxing district in Tennessee on behalf of which ad valorem property taxes may be levied, for the support of governmental and related activities and services. See Tennessee Code 7-52-303
• Testate: To die leaving a will.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Theft service: means any act by an automobile club or association the purpose of which is to locate, identify or recover a motor vehicle owned or controlled by a member of any automobile club or association, which has been, or may be, stolen or to detect or apprehend the person guilty of the theft. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Touring service: includes any act by an automobile club or association by which touring information is furnished with or without cost to members of any automobile club or association or the making of arrangements or reservations for lodging or travel space, discounts for accommodations or vehicle rental, procurement of tickets or permits for travel to any place in the world for a member of any automobile club or association. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Towing service: means any act by an automobile club or association consisting of the drafting or moving of a motor vehicle from one (1) place to another under other than its own power. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Tractor: means any self-propelled vehicle designed or used as a traveling power plant or for drawing other vehicles, but having no provision for carrying loads independently. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Traffic: means pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances either singly or together while using any highway for purposes of travel. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Trailer: means every vehicle with or without motive power, other than a pole trailer, designed for carrying persons or property and for being drawn by a motor vehicle and so constructed that no part of its weight rests upon the towing vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Transcript: A written, word-for-word record of what was said, either in a proceeding such as a trial or during some other conversation, as in a transcript of a hearing or oral deposition.
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Trip interruption service: means the provision of or reimbursement for travel expenses, including food, lodging, and transportation to the member's intended destination if the member's motor vehicle is stolen or is rendered inoperable due to an accident, theft, or mechanical breakdown. See Tennessee Code 55-18-102
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Vehicle: means every device in, upon or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, excepting devices used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Writ: A formal written command, issued from the court, requiring the performance of a specific act.
• Writ of certiorari: An order issued by the Supreme Court directing the lower court to transmit records for a case for which it will hear on appeal.