Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 8.01 > Chapter 21.1 - Medical Malpractice

• Agency: means any authority, instrumentality, officer, board or other unit of the state government empowered by the basic laws to make regulations or decide cases. See Virginia Code 2.2-4001
• Air navigation facility: means any airport ground or air navigation facility, other than one owned and operated by the United States, used in, available for use in, or designed for use in aid of air navigation, including any structures, buildings, mechanisms, lights, beacons, markers, communicating systems, or other instrumentalities or devices, and any combination of any or all of such facilities, used or useful as an aid, or constituting any advantage or convenience, to the safe taking off, navigation, and landing of aircraft; in the safe and efficient operation or maintenance of an airport; in the safe, efficient and convenient handling or processing of aviation passengers, mail or cargo; or in the servicing or maintenance of aircraft or ground equipment. See Virginia Code 5.1-1
• Certificate: means the document issued to a certified applicator or registered technician who has completed all the requirements of Article 3. See Virginia Code 3.2-3900
• Certified prescribed burn manager: means any person who has successfully completed a certification process established by the State Forester under § 10. See Virginia Code 10.1-1150.1
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• 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.
• Diameter: means the distance through a tree at the point of average thickness as measured from outside of bark to outside of bark at a point on a trunk ten inches above the general ground level. See Virginia Code 10.1-1162
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Docket: A log containing brief entries of court proceedings.
• 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.
• Health care: means any act, professional services in nursing homes, or treatment performed or furnished, or which should have been performed or furnished, by any health care provider for, to, or on behalf of a patient during the patient's medical diagnosis, care, treatment or confinement. See Virginia Code 8.01-581.1
• Health care provider: means (i) a person, corporation, facility or institution licensed by this Commonwealth to provide health care or professional services as a physician or hospital, a dentist, a pharmacist, a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse or a person who holds a multistate privilege to practice such nursing under the Nurse Licensure Compact, an advanced practice registered nurse, an optometrist, a podiatrist, a physician assistant, a chiropractor, a physical therapist, a physical therapy assistant, a clinical psychologist, a clinical social worker, a professional counselor, a licensed marriage and family therapist, a licensed dental hygienist, a health maintenance organization, or an emergency medical care attendant or technician who provides services on a fee basis; (ii) a professional corporation, all of whose shareholders or members are so licensed; (iii) a partnership, all of whose partners are so licensed; (iv) a nursing home as defined in § 54. See Virginia Code 8.01-581.1
• Health maintenance organization: means any person licensed pursuant to Chapter 43 of Title 38. See Virginia Code 8.01-581.1
• Hospital: means a public or private institution licensed pursuant to Chapter 5 of Title 32. See Virginia Code 8.01-581.1
• Malpractice: means any tort action or breach of contract action for personal injuries or wrongful death, based on health care or professional services rendered, or which should have been rendered, by a health care provider, to a patient. See Virginia Code 8.01-581.1
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• Oath: includes affirmation. See Virginia Code 1-228
• Patient: means any natural person who receives or should have received health care from a licensed health care provider except those persons who are given health care in an emergency situation which exempts the health care provider from liability for his emergency services in accordance with § 8. See Virginia Code 8.01-581.1
• Person: shall include individuals, a trust, an estate, a partnership, an association, an order, a corporation, or any other legal or commercial entity;

  6. See Virginia Code 8.01-2

• Person: means any landowner, owner of timber, owner of timber rights, sawmill operator, sawmill owner, veneer wood operator, pulpwood contractor, or any person engaged in the business of severing timber from the stump. See Virginia Code 10.1-1162
• Personal representative: includes the executor of a will or the administrator of the estate of a decedent, the administrator of such estate with the will annexed, the administrator of such estate unadministered by a former representative, whether there is a will or not, any person who is under the order of a circuit court to take into his possession the estate of a decedent for administration, and every other curator of a decedent's estate, for or against whom suits may be brought for causes of action that accrued to or against the decedent. See Virginia Code 1-234
• Pest: means any deleterious organism that is: (i) any vertebrate animal other than man; (ii) any invertebrate animal excluding any internal parasite of living man or other living animals; (iii) any plant growing where not wanted, and any plant part such as a root; or (iv) any bacterium, virus, or other microorganisms (except for those on or in living man or other living animals and those on or in processed food or processed animal feed, beverages, drugs as defined by the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act at 21 U. See Virginia Code 3.2-3900
• Pesticide: means : (i) any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any insects, rodents, fungi, bacteria, weeds, other forms of plant or animal life, bacterium, or viruses, except viruses on or in living man or other animals, which the Commissioner shall declare to be a pest; (ii) any substance or mixture of substances intended for use as a plant regulator, defoliant, or desiccant; and (iii) any substance intended to become an active ingredient in any substance defined in clause (i) and (ii). See Virginia Code 3.2-3900
• Physician: means a person licensed to practice medicine or osteopathy in this Commonwealth pursuant to Chapter 29 of Title 54. See Virginia Code 8.01-581.1
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• 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.
• Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Preliminary hearing: A hearing where the judge decides whether there is enough evidence to make the defendant have a trial.
• Prescribed burning: means the controlled application of fire or wildland fuels in either the natural or modified state, under specified environmental conditions, which allows a fire to be confined to a predetermined area and produces the fire behavior and fire characteristics necessary to attain planned fire treatment and ecological, silvicultural, and wildlife management objectives. See Virginia Code 10.1-1150.1
• Prescription: means a written statement defining the objectives to be attained by a prescribed burning and the conditions of temperature, humidity, wind direction and speed, fuel moisture, and soil moisture under which a fire will be allowed to burn. See Virginia Code 10.1-1150.1
• Professional services in nursing homes: means services provided in a nursing home, as that term is defined in clause (iv) of the definition of health care provider in this section, by a health care provider related to health care, staffing to provide patient care, psycho-social services, personal hygiene, hydration, nutrition, fall assessments or interventions, patient monitoring, prevention and treatment of medical conditions, diagnosis or therapy. See Virginia Code 8.01-581.1
• Registrar: means the Registrar of Regulations employed as provided in § 2. See Virginia Code 2.2-4001
• regulation: means any statement of general application, having the force of law, affecting the rights or conduct of any person, adopted by an agency in accordance with the authority conferred on it by applicable basic laws. See Virginia Code 2.2-4001
• 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).
• Sole ownership: The type of property ownership in which one individual holds legal title to the property and has full control of it.
• state forest: means lands acquired for the Commonwealth by purchase, gift or lease pursuant to this section. See Virginia Code 10.1-1107
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• sworn: means "affirm" or "affirmed. See Virginia Code 1-250
• Testify: Answer questions in court.
• Tort: A civil wrong or breach of a duty to another person, as outlined by law. A very common tort is negligent operation of a motor vehicle that results in property damage and personal injury in an automobile accident.
• 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.
• Tree: means any tree of a currently commercially valuable species which is six inches or more in diameter. See Virginia Code 10.1-1162
• Unreasonable adverse effects on the environment: means any unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide. See Virginia Code 3.2-3900
• Use: means the employment of a pesticide for the purposes of: (i) preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any pest; or (ii) regulating plant growth, causing defoliation or desiccation of plants. See Virginia Code 3.2-3900
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.
• Verdict: The decision of a petit jury or a judge.
• Virginia Register of Regulations: means the publication issued under the provisions of Article 6 (§ 2. See Virginia Code 2.2-4001
• Virginia Regulatory Town Hall: means the website operated by the Department of Planning and Budget, which has online public comment forums and displays information about regulatory actions under consideration in the Commonwealth and sends this information to registered public users. See Virginia Code 2.2-4001