Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 30 > Chapter 18 - Joint Commission on Health Care

• Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
• 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.
• Battlefield preservation organization: means a private nonprofit organization whose primary purpose is the preservation of one or more historical battlefields, including a battlefield property as defined in § 10. See Virginia Code 10.1-2300
• 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}
• Board: means the Board of Historic Resources. See Virginia Code 10.1-2200
• 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.
• County: means any existing county or such unit hereafter created. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• Courts of record: means the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Court of Appeals of Virginia, and the circuit courts. See Virginia Code 1-212
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Department: means the Department of Historic Resources. See Virginia Code 10.1-2200
• Director: means the Director of the Department of Historic Resources. See Virginia Code 10.1-2200
• 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.
• Field investigation: means the study of the traces of human culture at any site by means of surveying, sampling, excavating, or removing surface or subsurface material, or going on a site with that intent. See Virginia Code 10.1-2300
• Governing body: means the board of supervisors of a county, council of a city, or council of a town, as the context may require. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• inhabitants: means with reference to any county, city, town, political subdivision of the Commonwealth or any combination thereof, the natural persons in such county, city, town, political subdivision or combination as shown by the unadjusted United States decennial census last preceding the time at which any provision dependent upon population is being applied or the time as of which it is being construed. See Virginia Code 1-235
• 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.
• Locality: means a county, city, or town as the context may require. See Virginia Code 1-221
• Object of antiquity: means any relic, artifact, remain, including human skeletal remains, specimen, or other archaeological article that may be found on, in, or below the surface of the earth that has historic, scientific, archaeologic, or educational value. See Virginia Code 10.1-2300
• Person: means any natural individual, partnership, association, corporation, or other legal entity. See Virginia Code 10.1-2300
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• real estate: includes lands, tenements and hereditaments, and all rights and appurtenances thereto and interests therein, other than a chattel interest. See Virginia Code 1-219
• Site: means a geographical area on dry land that contains any evidence of human activity that is or may be the source of important historic, scientific, archaeologic, or educational data or objects. See Virginia Code 10.1-2300
• State-controlled land: includes state parks, state wildlife areas, state recreation areas, highway rights-of-way, and state-owned easements. See Virginia Code 10.1-2300
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Town: means any existing town or an incorporated community within one or more counties which became a town before noon, July one, nineteen hundred seventy-one, as provided by law or which has within defined boundaries a population of 1,000 or more and which has become a town as provided by law. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• Town: means any existing town or an incorporated community within one or more counties which became a town before noon, July 1, 1971, as provided by law or which has within defined boundaries a population of 1,000 or more and which has become a town as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-254
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.