Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 18.2 > Chapter 10 > Article 4 - Barratry

• Access contract: means a contract to obtain by electronic means access to, or information from, an information processing system of another person, or the equivalent of such access. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Aggrieved party: means a party entitled to a remedy for breach of contract. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Agreement: means the bargain of the parties in fact as found in their language or by implication from other circumstances, including course of performance, course of dealing, and usage of trade as provided in this chapter. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• 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
• Computer: means an electronic device that accepts information in digital or similar form and manipulates it for a result based on a sequence of instructions. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Computer information: means information in electronic form that is obtained from or through the use of a computer or that is in a form capable of being processed by a computer. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Computer information transaction: means an agreement or the performance of it to create, modify, transfer, or license computer information or informational rights in computer information. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Computer program: means a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer to bring about a certain result. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Consumer: means an individual who is a licensee of information or informational rights that the individual at the time of contracting intended to be used primarily for personal, family, or household purposes. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Consumer contract: means a contract between a merchant licensor and a consumer. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Contract: means the total legal obligation resulting from the parties' agreement as affected by this chapter and other applicable law. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Contract fee: means the price, fee, rent, or royalty payable in a contract under this chapter or any part of the amount payable. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Copy: means the medium on which information is fixed on a temporary or permanent basis and from which it can be perceived, reproduced, used, or communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• 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.
• Course of dealing: means a sequence of previous conduct between the parties to a particular transaction which establishes a common basis of understanding for interpreting their expressions and other conduct. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Course of performance: means repeated performances, under a contract that involves repeated occasions for performance, which are accepted or acquiesced in without objection by a party having knowledge of the nature of the performance and an opportunity to object to it. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Court: includes an arbitration or other dispute-resolution forum if the parties have agreed to use of that forum or its use is required by law. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Direct damages: means compensation for losses measured by § 59. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Electronic: means relating to technology having electrical, digital, magnetic, wireless, optical, electromagnetic, or similar capabilities. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Electronic agent: means a computer program, or electronic or other automated means, used independently to initiate an action, or to respond to electronic messages or performances, on the person's behalf without review or action by an individual at the time of the action or response to the message or performance. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Electronic message: means a record or display that is stored, generated, or transmitted by electronic means for the purpose of communication to another person or electronic agent. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Financial accommodation contract: means an agreement under which a person extends a financial accommodation to a licensee and which does not create a security interest governed by Title 8. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Financial services transaction: means an agreement that provides for, or a transaction that is, or entails access to, use, transfer, clearance, settlement, or processing of:

  (A) a deposit, loan, funds, or monetary value represented in electronic form and stored or capable of storage by electronic means and retrievable and transferable by electronic means, or other right to payment to or from a person;

  (B) an instrument or other item;

  (C) a payment order, credit card transaction, debit card transaction, funds transfer, automated clearing house transfer, or similar wholesale or retail transfer of funds;

  (D) a letter of credit, document of title, financial asset, investment property, or similar asset held in a fiduciary or agency capacity; or

  (E) related identifying, verifying, access-enabling, authorizing, or monitoring information. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2

• Goods: means all things that are movable at the time relevant to the computer information transaction. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Includes: means includes, but not limited to. See Virginia Code 1-218
• Information: means data, text, images, sounds, mask works, or computer programs, including collections and compilations of them. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Information processing system: means an electronic system for creating, generating, sending, receiving, storing, displaying, or processing information. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Informational content: means information that is intended to be communicated to or perceived by an individual in the ordinary use of the information, or the equivalent of that information. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Informational rights: include all rights in information created under laws governing patents, copyrights, mask works, trade secrets, trademarks, publicity rights, or any other law that gives a person, independently of contract, a right to control or preclude another person's use of or access to the information on the basis of the rights holder's interest in the information. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Insurance services transaction: means an agreement between an insurer and an insured that provides for, or a transaction that is or entails access to, use, transfer, clearance, settlement, or processing of:

  (A) an insurance policy, contract, or certificate; or

  (B) a right to payment under an insurance policy, contract or certificate. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2

• 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}
• License: means a contract that authorizes access to, or use, distribution, performance, modification, or reproduction of, information or informational rights, but expressly limits the access or uses authorized or expressly grants fewer than all rights in the information, whether or not the transferee has title to a licensed copy. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Licensee: means a person entitled by agreement to acquire or exercise rights in, or to have access to or use of, computer information under an agreement to which this chapter applies. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Licensor: means a person obligated by agreement to transfer or create rights in, or to give access to or use of, computer information or informational rights in it under an agreement to which this chapter applies. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Mass-market transaction: means a transaction that is:

  (A) a consumer contract; or

  (B) any other transaction with an end-user licensee if:

  (i) the transaction is for information or informational rights directed to the general public as a whole, including consumers, under substantially the same terms for the same information;

  (ii) the licensee acquires the information or informational rights in a retail transaction under terms consistent with an ordinary transaction in a retail market; and

  (iii) the transaction is not (a) a contract for redistribution or for public performance or public display of a copyrighted work; (b) a transaction in which the information is customized or otherwise specially prepared by the licensor for the licensee, other than minor customization using a capability of the information intended for that purpose; (c) a site license; or (d) an access contract. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2

• Merchant: means a person:

  (A) who deals in information or informational rights of the kind involved in the transaction;

  (B) who by the person's occupation holds himself out as having knowledge or skill peculiar to the relevant aspect of the business practices or information involved in the transaction; or

  (C) to whom the knowledge or skill peculiar to the practices or information involved in the transaction may be attributed by the person's employment of an agent or broker or other intermediary who by his occupation holds himself out as having the knowledge or skill. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2

• 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.
• 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.
• Party: means a person that engages in a transaction or makes an agreement under this chapter. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Person: means an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, governmental subdivision, instrumentality, or agency, public corporation, or any other legal or commercial entity. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Person: includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. See Virginia Code 1-230
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Plea: In a criminal case, the defendant's statement pleading "guilty" or "not guilty" in answer to the charges, a declaration made in open court.
• Process: includes subpoenas, the summons and complaint in a civil action, and process in statutory actions. See Virginia Code 1-237
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Public corporation: means the Commonwealth of Virginia or any political subdivision thereof or any incorporated municipality therein or any public agency of the Commonwealth or of any political subdivision thereof or of any municipality therein. See Virginia Code 1-219.1
• Receipt: means :

  (A) with respect to a copy, taking delivery; or

  (B) with respect to a notice:

  (i) coming to a person's attention; or

  (ii) being delivered to and available at a location or system designated by agreement for that purpose or, in the absence of an agreed location or system: (a) being delivered at the person's residence, or the person's place of business through which the contract was made, or at any other place held out by the person as a place for receipt of communications of the kind; or (b) in the case of an electronic notice, coming into existence in an information processing system or at an address in that system in a form capable of being processed by or perceived from a system of that type by a recipient, if the recipient uses, or otherwise has designated or holds out, that place or system for receipt of notices of the kind to be given and the sender does not know that the notice cannot be accessed from that place. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2

• Record: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in perceivable form. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Release: means an agreement by a party not to object to, or exercise any rights or pursue any remedies to limit, the use of information or informational rights which agreement does not require an affirmative act by the party to enable or support the other party's use of the information or informational rights. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• 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.
• Semitrailer: means every vehicle of the trailer type so designed and used in conjunction with a motor vehicle that some part of its own weight and that of its own load rests on or is carried by another vehicle. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Standard form: means a record or a group of related records containing terms prepared for repeated use in transactions and so used in a transaction in which there was no negotiated change of terms by individuals except to set the price, quantity, method of payment, selection among standard options, or time or method of delivery. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• State: means a State of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Supreme Court: means the Supreme Court of Virginia. See Virginia Code 1-249
• Town: means any existing town or an incorporated community within one or more counties which became a town before noon, July 1, 1971, as provided by law or which has within defined boundaries a population of 1,000 or more and which has become a town as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-254
• Traffic infraction: means a violation of law punishable as provided in § 46. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• Trailer: means every vehicle without motive power designed for carrying property or passengers wholly on its own structure and for being drawn by a motor vehicle, including manufactured homes. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• Truck: means every motor vehicle designed to transport property on its own structure independent of any other vehicle and having a registered gross weight in excess of 7,500 pounds. See Virginia Code 46.2-100
• United States: includes 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 1-255
• Usage of trade: means any practice or method of dealing that has such regularity of observance in a place, vocation, or trade as to justify an expectation that it will be observed with respect to the transaction in question. See Virginia Code 59.1-501.2
• Vehicle: means every device in, on or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn on a highway, except personal delivery devices and devices moved by human power or used exclusively on stationary rails or tracks. See Virginia Code 46.2-100