Terms Used In New York Laws > Environmental Conservation > Article 15 > Title 3 - Powers and Duties

• 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.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• 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.
• 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.
• Feasibility study: shall mean an investigation and evaluation of the viability of an industrial firm or group of industrial firms, including those for which local buyout assistance has been requested. See N.Y. Economic Development Law Law 190
• Industrial firm: shall mean a manufacturing firm involved with extracting, smelting, recovering, developing, preparing, compounding, converting, assembling or producing in any manner, minerals, raw materials, products or substances of any kind or nature, and shall include facilities related thereto for storage, warehousing or distribution, for research and development or for the discovery of new, and the refinement of known, substances, processes, and products. See N.Y. Economic Development Law Law 190
• 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.
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• 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: means any individual, firm, co-partnership, association or corporation other than the state and a "public corporation. See N.Y. Environmental Conservation Law 15-0107
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Productivity assessment: shall mean an evaluation of the existing and potential productivity and profitability of an industrial firm or group of industrial firms and recommendations for productivity improvements, including, but not limited to, analysis of products, market position, financial condition, ownership structure, production processes, labor/management relations, worker skills and training needs, plant and equipment, and business strategy. See N.Y. Economic Development Law Law 190
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Water power: shall be construed to mean power developed from falling or flowing water, and all electrical current and other forms of energy into which such power may be transformed. See N.Y. Environmental Conservation Law 15-0107
• Waters: shall be construed to include lakes, bays, sounds, ponds, impounding reservoirs, springs, wells, rivers, streams, creeks, estuaries, marshes, inlets, canals, the Atlantic ocean within the territorial limits of the state of New York, and all other bodies of surface or underground water, natural or artificial, inland or coastal, fresh or salt, public or private, which are wholly or partially within or bordering the state or within its jurisdiction. See N.Y. Environmental Conservation Law 15-0107