Terms Used In 5 CFR Part 1200 - Board Organization

• Act: means the Federal Seed Act approved August 9, 1939 (53 Stat. See 7 CFR 201.2
• 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.
• 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.
• Affirmed: In the practice of the appellate courts, the decree or order is declared valid and will stand as rendered in the lower court.
• agricultural seeds: means the following kinds of grass, forage, and field crop seeds, that are used for seeding purposes in the United States:
  Agrotricum— × Agrotriticum Cif. See 7 CFR 201.2
• 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.
• Annuity: A periodic (usually annual) payment of a fixed sum of money for either the life of the recipient or for a fixed number of years. A series of payments under a contract from an insurance company, a trust company, or an individual. Annuity payments are made at regular intervals over a period of more than one full year.
• 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.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• 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.
• Baseline: Projection of the receipts, outlays, and other budget amounts that would ensue in the future without any change in existing policy. Baseline projections are used to gauge the extent to which proposed legislation, if enacted into law, would alter current spending and revenue levels.
• 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}
• Charity: An agency, institution, or organization in existence and operating for the benefit of an indefinite number of persons and conducted for educational, religious, scientific, medical, or other beneficent purposes.
• coating material: means any substance that changes the size, shape, or weight of the original seed. See 7 CFR 201.2
• Collection of information: includes any requirement or request for persons to obtain, maintain, retain, report, or publicly disclose information. See 5 CFR 1320.3
• 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.
• complete record: means information which relates to the origin, treatment (including but not limited to coating, film coating, encrusting, or pelleting), germination, and purity (including variety) of each lot of agricultural seed transported or delivered for transportation in interstate commerce, or which relates to the treatment (including but not limited to coating, film coating, encrusting, or pelleting), germination, and variety of each lot of vegetable seed transported or delivered for transportation in interstate commerce. See 7 CFR 201.2
• Conference committee: A temporary, ad hoc panel composed of conferees from both chamber of a legislature which is formed for the purpose of reconciling differences in legislation that has passed both chambers. Conference committees are usually convened to resolve bicameral differences on major and controversial legislation.
• consumer: means any person who purchases or otherwise obtains seed for sowing but not for resale. See 7 CFR 201.2
• Continuance: Putting off of a hearing ot trial until a later time.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Controlling the pollination: means to use a method of hybridization which will produce pure seed which is at least 75 percent hybrid seed. See 7 CFR 201.2
• 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.
• country shipper: means any person located in a producing area who purchases seed locally for shipment to seed dealers or to other country shippers. See 7 CFR 201.2
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• dealer: means any person who cleans, processes, sells, offers for sale, transports, or delivers for transportation seeds in interstate commerce. See 7 CFR 201.2
• declaration: means a written statement of a grower, shipper, processor, dealer, or importer giving for any lot of seed the kind, variety, type, origin, or the use for which the seed is intended. See 7 CFR 201.2
• declaration of origin: means a declaration of a grower or country shipper in the United States stating for each lot of agricultural seed (1) kind of seed, (2) lot number or other identification, (3) State where seed was grown and the county where grown if to be labeled showing the origin as a portion of a State, (4) quantity of seed, (5) date shipped or delivered, (6) to whom sold, shipped, or delivered, and (7) the signature and address of the grower or country shipper issuing the declaration. See 7 CFR 201.2
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon 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.
• 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.
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• double cross: means the first generation hybrid between two single crosses. See 7 CFR 201.2
• 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
• 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.
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• 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.
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Freedom of Information Act: A federal law that mandates that all the records created and kept by federal agencies in the executive branch of government must be open for public inspection and copying. The only exceptions are those records that fall into one of nine exempted categories listed in the statute. ^{Source: OCC}
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Grace period: The number of days you'll have to pay your bill for purchases in full without triggering a finance charge. ^{Source: Federal Reserve}
• Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
• grower: means any person who produces directly or through a growing contract, or is a seed-crop sharer in seed which is sold, offered for sale, transported, or offered for transportation. See 7 CFR 201.2
• 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.
• Hearing Clerk: means the Hearing Clerk, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC;

  (e) Respondent. See 7 CFR 201.2

• inbred line: means a relatively true-breeding strain resulting from at least five successive generations of controlled self-fertilization or of backcrossing to a recurrent parent with selection, or its equivalent, for specific characteristics. See 7 CFR 201.2
• Indemnification: In general, a collateral contract or assurance under which one person agrees to secure another person against either anticipated financial losses or potential adverse legal consequences. ^{Source: FDIC}
• Inter vivos: Transfer of property from one living person to another living person.
• Interest rate: The amount paid by a borrower to a lender in exchange for the use of the lender's money for a certain period of time. Interest is paid on loans or on debt instruments, such as notes or bonds, either at regular intervals or as part of a lump sum payment when the issue matures. ^{Source: OCC}
• Irrevocable trust: A trust arrangement that cannot be revoked, rescinded, or repealed by the grantor.
• 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.
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• lot of seed: means a definite quantity of seed identified by a lot number, every portion or bag of which is uniform, within permitted tolerances, for the factors which appear in the labeling. See 7 CFR 201.2
• mixture: means seeds consisting of more than one kind or variety, each present in excess of 5 percent by weight of the whole. See 7 CFR 201.2
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• 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.
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• 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: includes an individual partnership, corporation, company, society, association, receiver, trustee, or agent;

  (c) Secretary. See 7 CFR 201.2

• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• 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}
• practical utility: means that actual uses can be demonstrated. See 5 CFR 1320.3
• Presiding officer: A majority-party Senator who presides over the Senate and is charged with maintaining order and decorum, recognizing Members to speak, and interpreting the Senate's rules, practices and precedents.
• Pro se: A Latin term meaning "on one's own behalf"; in courts, it refers to persons who present their own cases without lawyers.
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Public debt: Cumulative amounts borrowed by the Treasury Department or the Federal Financing Bank from the public or from another fund or account. The public debt does not include agency debt (amounts borrowed by other agencies of the Federal Government). The total public debt is subject to a statutory limit.
• Public law: A public bill or joint resolution that has passed both chambers and been enacted into law. Public laws have general applicability nationwide.
• purity: means the name or names of the kind, type, or variety and the percentage or percentages thereof; the percentage of other agricultural seed; the percentage of weed seeds, including noxious-weeds seeds; the percentage of inert matter; and the names of the noxious-weed seeds and the rate of occurrence of each. See 7 CFR 201.2
• Quality: means the combination of the inherent properties or attributes of a product which determines its relative degree of excellence. See 7 CFR 51.2
• Quality: means the inherent properties of any processed product which determine the relative degree of excellence of such product, and includes the effects of preparation and processing, and may or may not include the effects of packing media, or added ingredients. See 7 CFR 52.2
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• regulations: means the rules and regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Agriculture and the joint rules and regulations promulgated by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Agriculture under the Act. See 7 CFR 201.2
• 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.
• Remand: When an appellate court sends a case back to a lower court for further proceedings.
• Restitution: The court-ordered payment of money by the defendant to the victim for damages caused by the criminal action.
• Secretary: means the Secretary of Agriculture of the United States, or any officer or employee of the Department to whom authority has heretofore been delegated, or to whom authority may hereafter be delegated, to act in his stead;

  (d) Hearing Clerk. See 7 CFR 201.2

• 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.
• single cross: means the first generation hybrid between two inbred lines. See 7 CFR 201.2
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Testify: Answer questions in court.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• top cross: means the first generation hybrid of a cross between an inbred line and an open-pollinated variety or the first-generation hybrid between a single cross and an open-pollinated variety. See 7 CFR 201.2
• 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.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• vegetable seeds: means the seeds of the following kinds that are or may be grown in gardens or on truck farms and are or may be generally known and sold under the name of vegetable seeds:
  Artichoke—Cynara cardunculus L. See 7 CFR 201.2