Terms Used In South Carolina Code > Title 47 > Chapter 13 > Article 1 - General Provisions

• Allegation: something that someone says happened.
• 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.
• Appellate: About appeals; an appellate court has the power to review the judgement of another lower court or tribunal.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Bail: Security given for the release of a criminal defendant or witness from legal custody (usually in the form of money) to secure his/her appearance on the day and time appointed.
• Clerk of court: An officer appointed by the court to work with the chief judge in overseeing the court's administration, especially to assist in managing the flow of cases through the court and to maintain court records.
• Commercial or industrial activities: means those established activities generally recognized as commercial or industrial by zoning authorities within the State, except that none of the following are considered commercial or industrial activities:
  
  (a) outdoor advertising structures;
  
  (b) agriculture, forestry, ranching, grazing, farming, wayside produce stands, quarries, and borrow pits;
  
  (c) activities conducted in a building principally used as a residence;
  
  (d) hospitals, nursing homes, or long-term care facilities;
  
  (e) transient or temporary activities;
  
  (f) activities not visible from the main-traveled way;
  
  (g) activities more than six hundred sixty feet from the nearest edge of the right-of-way of interstate and freeway primary federal-aid highways or more than three hundred feet from the nearest edge of the right-of-way of nonfreeway primary federal-aid highways;
  
  (h) railroad tracks and minor sidings;
  
  (i) sham, prohibited, or illegal activities;
  
  (j) junkyards;
  
  (k) schools, churches, or cemeteries;
  
  (l) recreational facilities. See South Carolina Code 57-25-120
• Commercial or industrial activities: means those established activities generally recognized as commercial or industrial by zoning authorities within the area affected by this article, except that none of the following shall be considered commercial or industrial activities:
  
  (1) Outdoor advertising structures. See South Carolina Code 57-25-410
• Commercial or industrial activities: means those established activities generally recognized as commercial or industrial by zoning authorities within the area affected by this article, except that none of the following shall be considered commercial or industrial activities:
  
  (1) Outdoor advertising structures. See South Carolina Code 57-25-610
• Commission: means the Public Service Commission. See South Carolina Code 58-3-5
• 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.
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal 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.
• Counterclaim: A claim that a defendant makes against a plaintiff.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Docket: A log containing brief entries of court proceedings.
• 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.
• Federal-aid primary system: means that portion of connected main highways which officially are designated as the federal-aid primary highway system now or in the future by the Department of Transportation and approved by the appropriate office of the United States Government pursuant to the provisions of Title 23, United States Code, "Highways". See South Carolina Code 57-25-120
• 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}
• Freeway primary federal-aid highway: means a divided arterial highway for through traffic with full control of access built to the same standards as to access as an interstate highway, which is officially designated now or in the future as a part of the federal-aid primary system. See South Carolina Code 57-25-120
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Hearing officer: means a person employed by the commission to serve as a presiding officer in an adjudicative proceeding before the commission. See South Carolina Code 58-3-5
• highway: means that recently constructed portion, portion under construction or portion to be constructed, of State Highway No. See South Carolina Code 57-25-410
• Highway: means the John C. See South Carolina Code 57-25-610
• Immediate family: means an individual who is:
  
  (a) a child residing in the person's household;
  
  (b) a spouse of the person; or
  
  (c) an individual claimed by the person or the person's spouse as a dependent for income tax purposes. See South Carolina Code 58-3-5
• Interstate system: means that portion of the national system of interstate and defense highways located within this State officially designated now or in the future by the Department of Transportation and approved by the appropriate office of the United States Government pursuant to the provisions of Title 23, United States Code, "Highways". See South Carolina Code 57-25-120
• Joint committee: Committees including membership from both houses of teh legislature. Joint committees are usually established with narrow jurisdictions and normally lack authority to report legislation.
• Joint session: When both chambers of a legislature adopt a concurrent resolution to meet together.
• 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.
• 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}
• 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.
• outdoor advertising sign: means an outdoor sign, display, device, figure, painting, drawing, message, plaque, poster, billboard, or other thing which is designed, intended, or used to advertise or inform, or any part of the advertising or its informative contents. See South Carolina Code 57-25-120
• outdoor advertising sign: means any outdoor sign, display, device, figure, painting, drawing, message, plaque, poster, billboard, or other thing which is designed, intended or used to advertise or inform, any part of the advertising or informative contents of which is visible from any place on the main-traveled way of the highway. See South Carolina Code 57-25-410
• outdoor advertising sign: means any outdoor sign, display, device, figure, painting, drawing, message, plaque, poster, billboard, or other thing which is designed, intended or used to advertise or inform, any part of the advertising or informative contents of which is visible from any place on the main-traveled way of the highway. See South Carolina Code 57-25-610
• 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.
• 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.
• Probable cause: A reasonable ground for belief that the offender violated a specific law.
• Public utility: means public utility as defined in § 58-5-10, telephone utility as defined in § 58-9-10, government-owned telecommunications service provider as defined in § 58-9-2610, radio common carrier as defined in § 58-11-10, carriers governed by Chapter 13 of Title 58, railroads and railways as defined in § 58-17-10, motor vehicle carrier as defined in § 58-23-10, or electrical utility as defined in § 58-27-10. See South Carolina Code 58-3-5
• 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.
• Recess: A temporary interruption of the legislative business.
• Regulatory staff: means the executive director or the executive director and employees of the Office of Regulatory Staff. See South Carolina Code 58-3-5
• 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.
• Review committee: means the State Regulation of Public Utilities Review Committee. See South Carolina Code 58-3-5
• Rural: means an area outside the limits of an incorporated municipality having a population of five thousand or more according to the most recent decennial census of the United States Bureau of Census. See South Carolina Code 57-25-800
• Semi-nudity: means a state of dress in which opaque clothing fails to cover the genitals, anus, anal cleft or cleavage, pubic area, vulva, nipple and areola of the female breast below a horizontal line across the top of the areola at its highest point. See South Carolina Code 57-25-120
• Sexually-oriented business: means a business offering its patrons goods of which a substantial portion are sexually-oriented materials. See South Carolina Code 57-25-120
• Sexually-oriented materials: means textual, pictorial, or three-dimensional material that depicts nudity, sexual conduct, sexual enticement, or sadomasochistic abuse in a way that is patently offensive to the average person applying contemporary adult community standards with respect to what is suitable for minors. See South Carolina Code 57-25-120
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.