13 Guam Code Ann. § 1201
Terms Used In 13 Guam Code Ann. § 1201
- Bankruptcy: Refers to statutes and judicial proceedings involving persons or businesses that cannot pay their debts and seek the assistance of the court in getting a fresh start. Under the protection of the bankruptcy court, debtors may discharge their debts, perhaps by paying a portion of each debt. Bankruptcy judges preside over these proceedings.
- 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.
- Counterclaim: A claim that a defendant makes against a plaintiff.
- Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
- 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
- Forgery: The fraudulent signing or alteration of another's name to an instrument such as a deed, mortgage, or check. The intent of the forgery is to deceive or defraud. 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.
- Guarantor: A party who agrees to be responsible for the payment of another party's debts should that party default. Source: OCC
- 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
- Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
- Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
- 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.
- 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.
- Personal property: All property that is not real property.
- Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
(1) Action in the sense of a judicial proceeding includes recoupment, counterclaim, setoff, suit in equity and any other proceedings in which rights are determined.
(2) Aggrieved party means a party entitled to resort to a remedy.
(3) Agreement means the bargain of the parties in fact as found in their language or by implication from other circumstances including course of dealing or usage of trade or course of performance as provided in this code (§ 1205 and § 2208.) Whether an agreement has legal consequences is
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determined by the provisions of this code, if applicable; otherwise by the law of contracts (§ 1103.) (Compare contract.)
(4) Bank means any person engaged in the business of banking.
(5) Bearer means the person in possession of an instrument, document of title or security payable to bearer or indorsed in blank.
(6) Bill of Lading means a document evidencing the receipt of goods for shipment issued by a person engaged in the business of transporting or forwarding goods, and which, by its terms, evidences the intention of the issuer that the person entitled under the document (7403(4)) has the right to receive, hold and dispose of the document and the goods it covers. Designation of a document by the issuer as a bill of lading is conclusive evidence of such intention. Bill of Lading includes an airbill. Airbill means a document serving for air transportation as a bill of lading does for marine or rail transportation, and includes an air consignment note or air waybill.
(7) Branch includes a separately incorporated foreign branch of a bank.
(8) Burden of establishing a fact means the burden of persuading the triers of fact that the existence of the fact is more probable than its nonexistence.
(9) Buyer in ordinary course of business means a person who in good faith and without knowledge that the sale to him is in violation of the ownership rights or security interest of a third party in the goods buys in ordinary course from a person in the business of selling goods of that kind but does not include a pawnbroker. All persons who sell minerals or the like (including oil and gas) at well-head or mineralhead shall be deemed to be persons in the business of selling goods of that kind. “”Buying”” may be for cash or by exchange of other property or on secured or unsecured credit and includes receiving goods or documents of title under a preexisting contract for sale but does not include a transfer in bulk or as security for or in total or partial satisfaction of a money debt.
(10) Conspicuous. A term or clause is conspicuous when it is so written that a reasonable person against whom it is to operate ought to have noticed it. A printed heading in capitals (as: NON-NEGOTIABLE BILL OF LAD-
ING) is conspicuous. Language in the body of a form is Aconspicuous@ if it is
in larger or other contrasting type or color. But in a telegram any stated term
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is Aconspicuous.@ Whether a term or clause is Aconspicuous@ or not is for
decision by the court.
(11) Contract means the total legal obligation which results from the parties’ agreement as affected by this code and any other applicable rules of
law. (Compare AAgreement.@)
(12) Creditor includes a general creditor, a secured creditor, a lien creditor and any representative of creditors, including an assignee for the benefit of creditors, a trustee in bankruptcy, a receiver in equity and an executor or administrator of an insolvent debtor’s or assignor’s estate.
(13) Defendant includes a person in the position of defendant in a cross- action or counterclaim.
(14) Delivery with respect to instruments, documents of title, chattel paper or securities means voluntary transfer of possession.
(15) Document of title includes bill of lading, dock warrant, dock receipt, warehouse receipt, gin ticket, compress receipt, and also any other document which in the regular course of business or financing is treated as adequately evidencing that the person entitled under the document (§ 7403(4)) has the right to receive, hold and dispose of the document and the goods it covers. To be a document of title, a document must purport to be issued by a bailee and purport to cover goods in the bailee’s possession which are either identified or are fungible portions of an identified mass.
(16) Fault means wrongful act, omission or breach.
(17) Fungible with respect to goods or securities means goods or securities of which any unit is, by nature or usage of trade, the equivalent of any other like unit. Goods which are not fungible shall be deemed fungible for the purposes of this code to the extent that under a particular agreement or document unlike units are treated as equivalents.
(18) Genuine means free of forging or counterfeiting.
(19) Good faith means honesty in fact in the conduct or transaction concerned.
(20) Holder means a person who is in possession of a document of title or an instrument or an investment security drawn, issued or indorsed to him or to his order or to bearer or in blank.
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(21) To honor is to pay or to accept and pay, or where a credit so engages to purchase or discount a draft complying with the terms of the credit.
(22) Insolvency proceedings includes any assignment for the benefit of creditors or other proceedings intended to liquidate or rehabilitate the estate of the person involved.
(23) A person is insolvent who either has ceased to pay his debts in the ordinary course of business or cannot pay his debts as they become due or is insolvent within the meaning of the federal bankruptcy law.
(24) Money means a medium of exchange authorized or adopted by a domestic or foreign government as a part of its currency.
(25) A person has notice of a fact when: (a) He has actual knowledge of it; or
(b) He has received notice or notification of it; or
(c) From all the facts and circumstances known to him at the time in question he has reason to know that it exists. A person knows or has knowledge of a fact when he has actual knowledge of it. Discover or learn or a word or phrase of similar import refers to knowledge rather than to reason to know. The time and circumstances under which a notice or notification may cease to be effective are not determined by this code.
(26) A person notifies or gives a notice or notification to another by taking such steps as may be reasonably required to inform the other in ordinary course whether or not such other actually comes to know of it. A person receives a notice or notification when:
(a) It comes to his attention; or
(b) It is duly delivered at the place of business through which the contract was made or at any other place held out by him as the place for receipt of such communications.
(27) Notice, knowledge or a notice or notification received by an organization is effective for a particular transaction from the time when it is brought to the attention of the individual conducting that transaction, and in any event from the time when it would have been brought to his attention if the organization had exercised due diligence. An organization exercises due
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diligence if it maintains reasonable routines for communicating significant information to the person conducting the transaction and there is reasonable compliance with the routines. Due diligence does not require an individual acting for the organization to communicate information unless such commu- nication is part of his regular duties or unless he has reason to know of the transaction and that the transaction would be materially affected by the information.
(28) Organization includes a corporation, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership or association, two or more persons having a joint or common interest, or any other legal or commercial entity.
(29) Party, as distinct from Athird party,@ means a person who has engaged in a transaction or made an agreement within this division.
(30) Person includes an individual or an organization. (See Section
1102.)
(31) Purchase includes taking by sale, discount negotiation, mortgage, pledge, lien, issue or reissue, gift or any other voluntary transaction creating an interest in property.
(32) Purchaser means a person who takes by purchase.
(33) Remedy means any remedial right to which an aggrieved party is entitled with or without resort to a tribunal.
(34) Representative includes an agent, an officer of a corporation or association, and a trustee, executor or administrator of an estate, or any other person empowered to act for another.
(35) Rights includes remedies.
(36) Security interest means an interest in personal property or fixtures which secures payment or performance of an obligation. The retention or reservation of title by a seller of goods notwithstanding shipment or delivery to the buyer (Section 2401) is limited in effect to a reservation of a “”security interest.”” The term also includes any interest of a buyer of accounts or chattel paper, which is subject to Division 9. The special property interest of a buyer of goods on identification of such goods to a contract for sale under Section 2501 is not a “”security interest,”” but a buyer may also acquire a “”security interest”” by complying with Division 9. Unless a lease or consignment is intended as security, reservation of title thereunder is not a
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“”security interest”” but a consignment is in any event subject to the provisions on consignment sales (Section 2326.) Whether a lease is intended as security is to be determined by the facts of each case; however, (a) the inclusion of an option to purchase does not of itself make the lease one intended for security, and (b) an agreement that upon compliance with the terms of the lease the lessee shall become or has the option to become the owner of the property for no additional consideration or for a nominal consideration does make the lease one intended for security.
(37) Send in connection with any writing or notice means to deposit in the mail or deliver for transmission by any other usual means of commu- nication with postage or cost of transmission provided for and properly addressed and in the case of an instrument to an address specified thereon or otherwise agreed, or if there be none to any address reasonable under the circumstances. The receipt of any writing or notice within the time at which it would have arrived if properly sent has the effect of a proper sending. When a writing or notice is required to be sent by registered or certified mail, proof of mailing is sufficient, and proof of receipt by the addressee is
not required unless the words Awith return receipt requested@ are also used.
(38) Signed includes any symbol executed or adopted by a party with present intention to authenticate a writing.
(39) Surety includes guarantor.
(40) Telegram includes a message transmitted by radio, teletype, cable, any mechanical method of transmission, or the like.
(41) Term means that portion of an agreement which relates to a particular matter.
(42) Unauthorized signature or indorsement means one made without actual, implied or apparent authority and includes a forgery.
(43) Value. Except as otherwise provided with respect to negotiable instruments and bank collections (Sections 3303, 4208 and 4209) a person
gives Avalue@ for rights if he acquires them:
(a) In return for a binding commitment to extend credit or for the extension of immediately available credit whether or not drawn upon and whether or not a chargeback is provided for in the event of difficulties in collection; or
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(b) As security for or in total or partial satisfaction of a pre-existing claim; or
(c) By accepting delivery pursuant to a pre-existing contract for purchase; or
(d) Generally, in return for any consideration sufficient to support a simple contract.
(44) Warehouse receipt means a document evidencing the receipt of goods for storage issued by a warehouseman (Section 7102), and which, by its terms, evidences the intention of the issuer that the person entitled under the document (Section 7403(4)) has the right to receive, hold and dispose of the document and the goods it covers. Designation of a document by the
issuer as a Awarehouse receipt@ is conclusive evidence of such intention.
(45) Written or writing includes printing, typewriting or any other intentional reduction to tangible form.
§ 1202. Documents Required of Third Party; Admissibility; Presumptions.
(1) A bill of lading, policy or certificate of insurance, official weigher’s or inspector’s certificate, consular invoice, or any other document authorized or required by the contract to be issued by a third party is admissible as evidence of the facts stated in the document by the third party in any action arising out of the contract which authorized or required the document.
(2) In any action arising out of the contract which authorized or required the document referred to in subdivision (1):
(a) A document in due form purporting to be the document referred to in subdivision (1) is presumed to be authentic and genuine. This presumption is a presumption affecting the burden of producing evi- dence.
(b) If the document is found to be authentic and genuine, the facts stated in the document by the third party are presumed to be true. This presumption is a presumption affecting the burden of proof.
