(a)  In this Chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:

(1)  “Bailee” means a person that by a warehouse receipt, bill of lading, or other document of title acknowledges possession of goods and contracts to deliver them.  “Bailor” means a person that delivers possession of goods to a bailee.

(2)  “Carrier” means a person that issues a bill of lading.

(3)  “Consignee” means a person named in a bill of lading to which or to whose order the bill promises delivery.

(4)  “Consignor” means a person named in a bill of lading as the person from which the goods have been received for shipment.

(5)  “Delivery order” means a record that contains an order to deliver goods directed to a warehouse, carrier, or other person that in the ordinary course of business issues warehouse receipts or bills of lading.

(6)  [Reserved.]

(7)  “Goods” means all things that are treated as movable for the purposes of a contract for storage or transportation.

(8)  “Issuer” means a bailee that issues a document of title or, in the case of an unaccepted delivery order, the person that orders the possessor of goods to deliver.  The term includes a person for which an agent or employee purports to act in issuing a document if the agent or employee has real or apparent authority to issue documents, even if the issuer did not receive any goods, the goods were misdescribed, or in any other respect the agent or employee violated the issuer’s instructions.

(9)  “Person entitled under the document” means the holder, in the case of a negotiable document of title, or the person to which delivery of the goods is to be made by the terms of, or pursuant to instructions in a record under, a nonnegotiable document of title.

(10)  [Reserved.]

(11)  “Sign” means, with present intent to authenticate or adopt a record:

(A)  To execute or adopt a tangible symbol; or

(B)  To attach to or logically associate with the record an electronic sound, symbol, or process.

(12)  “Shipper” means a person that enters into a contract of transportation with a carrier.

(13)  “Warehouse” means a person engaged in the business of storing goods for hire.

(b)  In this Chapter:

(1)  “Contract for sale” means both a present sale of goods and a contract to sell goods at a future time.

(2)  “Lessee in ordinary course of business” means a person that becomes a lessee of goods in good faith, without knowledge that the lease violates the rights of another person in the goods, and in the ordinary course from a person, other than a pawnbroker, in the business of selling or leasing goods of that kind.  A lessee in the ordinary course of business may lease for cash, or by exchange of other property, or on secured or unsecured credit, and may acquire goods or documents of title under a preexisting lease.

(3)  “Receipt of goods” means taking physical possession of the goods.

(c)  In addition, Chapter 1 contains general definitions and principles of construction and interpretation applicable throughout this Chapter.

(d)  In this Chapter, “lien” means a privilege on movable property created by operation of law in favor of a creditor.

Added by Acts 1978, No. 164, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1979.  Acts 1989, No. 135, §5, eff. Jan. 1, 1990; Acts 2009, No. 207, §3, eff. Jan. 1, 2010.