Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 17.1 > Chapter 3 > Article 3 - Declaration of Judicial Emergency

• 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.
• Appellate: About appeals; an appellate court has the power to review the judgement of another lower court or tribunal.
• Chief judge: The judge who has primary responsibility for the administration of a court but also decides cases; chief judges are determined by seniority.
• City: means an independent incorporated community which became a city as provided by law before noon on July 1, 1971, or which has within defined boundaries a population of 5,000 or more and which has become a city as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-208
• Commission: means the State Corporation Commission. See Virginia Code 56-1
• company: includes all corporations created by acts of the General Assembly of Virginia, or under the general incorporation laws of this Commonwealth, or doing business therein, and shall exclude all municipal corporations, other political subdivisions, and public institutions owned or controlled by the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 56-1
• 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.
• 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.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Gas or oil operator: means any person who operates or has been designated to operate any gas or oil well or gathering pipeline. See Virginia Code 45.2-1600
• Guarantor: A party who agrees to be responsible for the payment of another party's debts should that party default. ^{Source: OCC}
• 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.
• 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.
• Oil: means natural crude oil or petroleum and other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, that are produced at the well in liquid form by ordinary production methods and are not the result of condensation of gas after it leaves the underground reservoir. See Virginia Code 45.2-1600
• Orphaned well: means any well abandoned prior to July 1, 1950, or for which no records exist concerning its drilling, plugging, or abandonment. See Virginia Code 45.2-1600
• Person: includes individuals, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Public facilities: means (i) airports, landing fields, and air navigation facilities; (ii) educational facilities; (iii) flood control, bank and shore protection, watershed protection, and dams; (iv) hospital facilities; (v) judicial and court facilities; (vi) correctional facilities, including jails and penitentiaries; (vii) library facilities; (viii) military installations; (ix) parks so designated by the Commonwealth or by the locality in its comprehensive plan; (x) properties of historical significance so designated by the Commonwealth; (xi) law enforcement, fire, emergency medical, and rescue facilities; (xii) sanitary sewer, water or stormwater facilities; (xiii) transportation facilities including highways, roads, streets, and bridges, traffic signals, related easements and rights-of-way, mass transit, ports, and any components of federal, state, or local transportation facilities; (xiv) waste management facilities for hazardous, radioactive, or other waste; (xv) office facilities occupied by a public corporation; and (xvi) such other facilities that are necessary to the construction, maintenance, or operation of a public facility as listed in clauses (i) through (xv) and directly related thereto. See Virginia Code 1-219.1
• public service company: when used in this chapter shall mean every person, firm, corporation or association, or their lessees, trustees or receivers, other than a municipal corporation, now or hereafter engaged in business in this Commonwealth as a public utility and subject to regulation as to rates and service by the State Corporation Commission under the provisions of Chapter 10 (§ 56-232 et seq. See Virginia Code 56-55
• regulation: include joint rates, joint charges and joint regulations, respectively. See Virginia Code 56-1
• Restoration: means all activity required to return a permitted site to other use after gas, oil, or geophysical operations have ended, as approved in the operations plan for the permitted site. See Virginia Code 45.2-1600
• State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Supreme Court: means the Supreme Court of Virginia. See Virginia Code 1-249
• Surface owner: means any person who is the owner of record of the surface of the land. See Virginia Code 45.2-1600
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.
• Water well: means any well drilled, bored, or dug into the earth for the sole purpose of extracting from it potable, fresh, or usable water for household, domestic, industrial, agricultural, or public use. See Virginia Code 45.2-1600
• Well: means any shaft or hole sunk, drilled, bored, or dug into the earth or into underground strata for the extraction, injection, or placement of any gaseous or liquid substance or any shaft or hole sunk or used in conjunction with such extraction, injection, or placement. See Virginia Code 45.2-1600