Terms Used In Tennessee Code > Title 65 > Chapter 25 - Rural Electric and Community Services Cooperatives

• Adjourn: A motion to adjourn a legislative chamber or a committee, if passed, ends that day's session.
• Agriculture: means :
  (i) The land, buildings and machinery used in the commercial production of farm products and nursery stock. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Area coverage: means that a service will be available to patrons in accordance with a financially feasible plan without regard to how thickly or sparsely patrons' premises may be located in a cooperative's areas of service. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Asset forfeiture: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Benefit: means anything reasonably regarded as economic gain, enhancement or advantage, including benefit to any other person in whose welfare the beneficiary is interested. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Blackmail: means threatening to expose or reveal the identity of another or any material, document, secret or other information that might subject a person to hatred, contempt, ridicule, loss of employment, social status or economic harm. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• Board: means a cooperative's board of directors or the necessary number thereof to take action. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Bodily injury: includes a cut, abrasion, bruise, burn or disfigurement, and physical pain or temporary illness or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Capital offense: A crime punishable by death.
• 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.
• Code: includes the Tennessee Code and all amendments and revisions to the code and all additions and supplements to the code. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Coercion: means a threat, however communicated, to:
  (A) Commit any offense. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Coercion: means :
  (A) Causing or threatening to cause bodily harm to any person, physically restraining or confining any person or threatening to physically restrain or confine any person. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• Commercial sex act: means :
  (A) Any sexually explicit conduct for which anything of value is directly or indirectly given, promised to or received by any person, which conduct is induced or obtained by coercion or deception or which conduct is induced or obtained from a person under eighteen (18) years of age. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• Community utility services: includes broadband internet access and related services and telecommunications services, including, but not limited to, television communication services of any kind and by any means, television programming and decryption services, selling, leasing, both as lessor and lessee, servicing and repairing related equipment, including TV antenna dishes, and the furnishing for any purpose to itself or to others, including other cooperatives, information and data relative to its or their other purposes, including, if such is the case, the primary purpose. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Continuance: Putting off of a hearing ot trial until a later time.
• cooperatives: means one (1) or more nonprofit cooperative membership corporations heretofore or hereafter organized under or otherwise subject to this chapter, including corporations transacting business in this state pursuant to §. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Deadly weapon: means :
  (A) A firearm or anything manifestly designed, made or adapted for the purpose of inflicting death or serious bodily injury. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Deception: means :
  (A) Creating or confirming another person's impression of an existing fact or past event that is false and that the accused knows or believes to be false. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Defendant: means a person accused of an offense under this title and includes any person who aids or abets the commission of such offense. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• 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.
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Fee simple: Absolute title to property with no limitations or restrictions regarding the person who may inherit it.
• Financial harm: includes extortion as defined by §. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• Floor amendment: An amendment offered by an individual legisator from the floor during consideration of a bill or other measure, in contrast to a committee amendment.
• Force: means compulsion by the use of physical power or violence and shall be broadly construed to accomplish the purposes of this title. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Forced labor or services: means labor or services that are performed or provided by another person and are obtained or maintained through the defendant's:
  (A) Causing or threatening to cause serious harm to any person. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• Government: means the state or any political subdivision of the state, and includes any branch or agency of the state, a county, municipality or other political subdivision. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• Harm: means anything reasonably regarded as loss, disadvantage or injury, including harm to another person in whose welfare the person affected is interested. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Indictment: The formal charge issued by a grand jury stating that there is enough evidence that the defendant committed the crime to justify having a trial; it is used primarily for felonies.
• Intentional: means that a person acts intentionally with respect to the nature of the conduct or to a result of the conduct when it is the person's conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Involuntary servitude: means the condition of a person who is compelled by force, coercion or imprisonment and against the person's will to labor for another, whether paid or not. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• Knowing: means that a person acts knowingly with respect to the conduct or to circumstances surrounding the conduct when the person is aware of the nature of the conduct or that the circumstances exist. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Labor: means work of economic or financial value. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• Lands: includes lands, tenements and hereditaments, and all rights thereto and interests therein, equitable as well as legal. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Law enforcement officer: includes a sheriff, sheriff's deputy, and, only for purposes of the enhancement of a crime, a deputy jailer. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Lease-sale: means an agreement whereby the possession and use of assets and properties would be transferred to a lessee-purchaser for a stated or determinable term in time, during or at the end of which such lessee-purchaser would have the right and be obligated, or would have the option, to purchase and acquire, or would without further act acquire, fee simple title to such assets and properties for a price expressly stated in the agreement or for a price determinable by a formula contained in the agreement, whether or not any portion of any lease-hold or rental payments would be creditable as a part of such price. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Member: means a person having the right to vote for the directors of a cooperative and upon other matters as provided in this chapter, a cooperative's articles of incorporation or bylaws, and includes each incorporator of a cooperative thereof, and also a husband and wife admitted to joint membership. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Minor: means any person under eighteen (18) years of age. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Minor: means an individual who is less than eighteen (18) years of age. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
• Mortgagor: The person who pledges property to a creditor as collateral for a loan and who receives the money.
• Net worth: means the difference between a cooperative's assets and liabilities, which liabilities shall not include any amounts of patronage capital assigned or assignable to patrons on the cooperative's books or carried on such books even though not so assigned or assignable, determined in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and methods and the accounting system applicable to such cooperative, as most recently, but not more than sixty (60) days, reflected in its books of account and balance sheet prior to the date of a member meeting at which a vote will be taken on whether to sell or to lease-sell all or a substantial portion of the assets and properties which are devoted to and are used or useful in pursuing a primary purpose. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Obtain: means , in relation to labor or services, to secure performance of labor or services. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• Patron: means a person agreeing to receive or already receiving or who in the past has received one (1) or more of the services rendered by a cooperative, whether such person is a member thereof or not, and "nonmember patron" means such a person who or which is not or was not a member. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Person: includes any natural person, firm, association, corporation, cooperative, business trust, partnership and federal, state or local governments, or departments, agencies or any other political subdivision thereof. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Person: includes the singular and the plural and means and includes any individual, firm, partnership, copartnership, association, corporation, governmental subdivision or agency, or other organization or other legal entity, or any agent or servant thereof. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Plea agreement: An arrangement between the prosecutor, the defense attorney, and the defendant in which the defendant agrees to plead guilty in exchange for special considerations. ^Source:
• Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Primary purpose: means one (1) of the purposes provided for in §. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Property: means anything of value, including, but not limited to, money, real estate, tangible or intangible personal property, including anything severed from land, library material, contract rights, choses-in-action, interests in or claims to wealth, credit, admission or transportation tickets, captured or domestic animals, food and drink, electric or other power. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Reckless: means that a person acts recklessly with respect to circumstances surrounding the conduct or the result of the conduct when the person is aware of, but consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• 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.
• Restitution: The court-ordered payment of money by the defendant to the victim for damages caused by the criminal action.
• secondary purpose: means one (1) of the purposes provided for in §. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Service of process: The service of writs or summonses to the appropriate party.
• services: includes sales, exchanges, rentals, repairs and maintenance of land, facilities, equipment, machinery, appliances, accessories and goods and the financing of their acquisition by patrons. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Services: includes labor, skill, professional service, transportation, telephone, mail, gas, electricity, steam, water, cable television, entertainment subscription service or other public services, accommodations in hotels, restaurants or elsewhere, admissions to exhibitions, use of vehicles or other movable property, and any other activity or product considered in the ordinary course of business to be a service, regardless of whether it is listed in this subdivision (a)(38) or a specific statute exists covering the same or similar conduct. See Tennessee Code 39-11-106
• Services: means an ongoing relationship between a person and the defendant in which the person performs activities under the supervision of or for the defendant. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• sex: means a person's immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth and evidence of a person's biological sex. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Sexually explicit conduct: means actual or simulated:
  (A) Sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex. See Tennessee Code 39-13-301
• signed: includes a mark, the name being written near the mark and witnessed, or any other symbol or methodology executed or adopted by a party with intention to authenticate a writing or record, regardless of being witnessed. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Substantial portion: means ten percent (10%) or more of the value in dollars of a cooperative's assets and properties as appropriately stated in its books of account. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Usury: Charging an illegally high interest rate on a loan. ^{Source: OCC}
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.