Terms Used In Louisiana Revised Statutes > Title 50 > Chapter 1 - Louisiana Coordinate System

• Ambulance service: means an entity under circumstances in which the provisions of La. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• 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.
• Appointment: means the designation of a person, by due authority, to become an employee in a position, and his induction into employment in the position. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Board: means the Patient's Compensation Fund Oversight Board created in La. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Claimant: means a patient or representative or any person, including a decedent's estate, seeking or who has sought recovery of damages or future medical care and related benefits under this Part. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• class of position: means a definitely recognized kind of employment in the classified service, designated to embrace positions that are so nearly alike in the essential character of their duties, responsibilities and consequent qualification requirements that they may fairly and equitably be treated alike under like conditions for all personnel purposes. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533
• Classification plan: means all the classes of positions established for the classified service. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533
• Community blood center: means any independent nonprofit nonhospital based facility which collects blood and blood products from donors primarily to supply blood and blood components to other health care facilities. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• 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.
• Court: means a court of competent jurisdiction and proper venue over the parties. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• 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.
• 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.
• Eligible: means a person whose name is on a list. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533
• 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.
• Executive director: means the executive director of the board, appointed and employed pursuant to La. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• from a state hospital or other state facility: shall mean a patient who presents himself for treatment to any health care provider enumerated in this item after prior arrangements have been made between such a provider and a state hospital or other state facility where that patient has been receiving or has attempted to receive health care and medical services or in circumstances when no prior arrangements have been made or a patient who has attempted to reach or was in transit to such state hospital or facility to receive health care and medical services but was diverted from that intended destination by such hospital or facility because of lack of specialty medical services, treatment availability, or bed capacity, or any combination thereof. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1237.1
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Health care: means any act 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 care, treatment, or confinement, or during or relating to or in connection with the procurement of human blood or blood components. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Health care: means any act or treatment which was performed or furnished or which should have been performed or furnished by any person covered by this Part for, to, or on behalf of, a patient during the medical care, treatment or confinement of the patient. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1237.1
• Health care provider: means a person, partnership, limited liability partnership, limited liability company, corporation, facility, or institution licensed or certified by this state to provide health care or professional services as a physician, hospital, nursing home, community blood center, tissue bank, dentist, a licensed dietician or licensed nutritionist employed by, referred by, or performing work under contract for, a health care provider or other person already covered by this Part, registered or licensed practical nurse or certified nurse assistant, offshore health service provider, ambulance service under circumstances in which the provisions of La. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Hospital: means any hospital as defined in La. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• In forma pauperis: In the manner of a pauper. Permission given to a person to sue without payment of court fees on claim of indigence or poverty.
• 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}
• Insurer: means the authority or the entity chosen to manage the authority or an insurer writing policies of malpractice insurance. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Interrogatories: Written questions asked by one party of an opposing party, who must answer them in writing under oath; a discovery device in a lawsuit.
• Lawsuit: A legal action started by a plaintiff against a defendant based on a complaint that the defendant failed to perform a legal duty, resulting in harm to the plaintiff.
• lists: means a reinstatement employment list, a promotional employment list, a competitive employment list and a re-employment list. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533
• Malpractice: means any unintentional tort or any breach of contract based on health care or professional services rendered, or which should have been rendered, by a health care provider, to a patient, including failure to render services timely and the handling of a patient, including loading and unloading of a patient, and also includes all legal responsibility of a health care provider arising from acts or omissions during the procurement of blood or blood components, in the training or supervision of health care providers, or from defects in blood, tissue, transplants, drugs, and medicines, or from defects in or failures of prosthetic devices implanted in or used on or in the person of a patient. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Malpractice: means the failure to exercise the reasonable standard of care specified and required by Subsection B of this Section, in the provision of health care, when such failure proximately causes injury to a patient, as provided in Subsection B of this Section. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1237.1
• Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• 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.
• Patient: means a natural person, including a donor of human blood, a donor or prospective donor of an organ or tissue, or blood components and a nursing home resident who receives or should have received health care from a licensed health care provider, under contract, expressed or implied. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Patient: means a natural person who receives, or should have received, health care from a person covered by this Part, or a donor or prospective donor of an organ or tissue, and any other natural person or persons who would or may have a claim or claims for damages under applicable law arising out of, or directly related to, the claim or claims of the natural person who receives, or should have received, health care from a person covered by this Part. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1237.1
• permanent employee: means an employee who has been appointed to a position in the classified service in accordance with this Part after completing his working test period. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533
• person covered by this Part: means :

              (i) The state or any of its departments, offices, agencies, boards, commissions, institutions, universities, facilities, hospitals, clinics, laboratories, health care units, ambulances, ambulance services, university health centers, and other state entities which may provide any kind of health care whatsoever, and the officers, officials, and employees thereof when acting within the course and scope of their duties in providing health care in connection with such state entity; or

              (ii) A person acting in a professional capacity in providing health care services, by or on behalf of the state, including but not limited to a physician, psychologist, coroner, and assistant coroner who is a licensed physician when acting solely in accordance with the Behavioral Health Law as provided in La. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1237.1

• Physician: means a person with an unlimited license to practice medicine in this state. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Physician: means a person with a license or permit to practice medicine in this state. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1237.1
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Private law: A private bill enacted into law. Private laws have restricted applicability, often addressing immigration and naturalization issues affecting individuals.
• Probable cause: A reasonable ground for belief that the offender violated a specific law.
• Promotion: means a change of an employee in the classified service from a position of one class to a position of a higher class which generally involves increased responsibilities and provides increased pay. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533
• Promotional seniority: means the total cumulative employment in a class of positions of the next lower class from which a promotion is to be made. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Public law: A public bill or joint resolution that has passed both chambers and been enacted into law. Public laws have general applicability nationwide.
• Re-employment list: means an employment list for the entrance or lowest ranking class in the classified service, or any group of classes that may be grouped in the classification plan, containing names of regular employees who have been laid off under the "lay off" provisions of this Part. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533
• reinstatement list: means an employment list containing names of persons eligible for reinstatement in positions of a class from which they have been demoted for reasons other than disciplinary action. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533
• Representative: means the spouse, parent, guardian, trustee, attorney or other legal agent of the patient. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Representative: means a person who is a parent, tutor, curator, spouse, trustee, attorney, or other legal agent of the patient and who is authorized, by and on behalf of the patient, to exercise any of the patient's rights, privileges, or immunities granted by this Section or to fulfill any of the patient's obligations, duties, or forbearances imposed under this Section, because the patient has executed a written authorization and mandate to that effect or because the law operates to that effect due to the status of that patient and his relationship to such person, as when the patient is a minor child and his parent must act for him. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1237.1
• Right to recover losses due to malpractice: means the substantive right in favor of a patient or his representative to receive, subject to the fiscal legislative discretion of appropriation, some measure of compensation in money or services or both from the state, as and to the extent allowed by this Section, toward repairing any injury or losses proximately caused to him by an act of malpractice committed by a state health care provider as defined in this Section. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1237.1
• Risk: means any health care provider which shall apply for malpractice liability insurance coverage under the provisions of La. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Risk manager: means an insurance company with no less than an "A" rating according to the then current annual edition of Best's Insurance Reports or a domestic insurance company with assets in excess of ten million dollars chosen by the commissioner according to the public bid laws of the state, to manage the authority. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Seniority: means the following:

              (a) "Departmental seniority" means the total employment computed for an employee beginning with the last date on which he was regularly and permanently appointed and has worked continuously, to and including the date of computation. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 33:2533

• 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.
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Testify: Answer questions in court.
• Tissue bank: means any independent nonprofit facility procuring and processing human organs or tissues for transplantation, medical education, research, or therapy. See Louisiana Revised Statutes 40:1231.1
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.