Terms Used In Texas Business and Commerce Code Chapter 20 - Regulation of Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies

• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Arraignment: A proceeding in which an individual who is accused of committing a crime is brought into court, told of the charges, and asked to plead guilty or not guilty.
• Asset forfeiture: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• 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.
• Bailee: means a person that by a warehouse receipt, bill of lading, or other document of title acknowledges possession of goods and contracts to deliver them. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 7.102
• Building materials: includes lumber, windows, and other materials used in the construction or repair of improvements to real property. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Carrier: means a person that issues a bill of lading. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 7.102
• Case law: The law as laid down in cases that have been decided in the decisions of the courts.
• Consignee: means a person named in a bill of lading to which or to whose order the bill promises delivery. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 7.102
• Consignor: means a person named in a bill of lading as the person from which the goods have been received for shipment. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 7.102
• Consumer: means an individual, partnership, corporation, this state, or a subdivision or agency of this state who seeks or acquires by purchase or lease, any goods or services, except that the term does not include a business consumer that has assets of $25 million or more, or that is owned or controlled by a corporation or entity with assets of $25 million or more. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Consumer protection division: means the consumer protection division of the attorney general's office. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Counterclaim: A claim that a defendant makes against a plaintiff.
• Court reporter: A person who makes a word-for-word record of what is said in court and produces a transcript of the proceedings upon request.
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Delivery order: means a record that contains an order to deliver goods directed to a warehouse, carrier, or other person that in the ordinary course of business issues warehouse receipts or bills of lading. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 7.102
• Documentary material: includes the original or a copy of any book, record, report, memorandum, paper, communication, tabulation, map, chart, photograph, mechanical transcription, or other tangible document or recording, wherever situated. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Economic damages: means compensatory damages for pecuniary loss, including costs of repair and replacement. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Escheat: Reversion of real or personal property to the state when 1) a person dies without leaving a will and has no heirs, or 2) when the property (such as a bank account) has been inactive for a certain period of time. ^{Source: OCC}
• Fair Credit Reporting Act: A federal law, established in 1971 and revised in 1997, that gives consumers the right to see their credit records and correct any mistakes. ^{Source: OCC}
• Goods: means tangible chattels or real property purchased or leased for use. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Goods: means all things that are treated as movable for the purposes of a contract for storage or transportation. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 7.102
• Guarantor: A party who agrees to be responsible for the payment of another party's debts should that party default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Habeas corpus: A writ that is usually used to bring a prisoner before the court to determine the legality of his imprisonment. It may also be used to bring a person in custody before the court to give testimony, or to be prosecuted.
• Intangible property: Property that has no intrinsic value, but is merely the evidence of value such as stock certificates, bonds, and promissory notes.
• Intentionally: means actual awareness of the falsity, deception, or unfairness of the act or practice, or the condition, defect, or failure constituting a breach of warranty giving rise to the consumer's claim, coupled with the specific intent that the consumer act in detrimental reliance on the falsity or deception or in detrimental ignorance of the unfairness. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Interrogatories: Written questions asked by one party of an opposing party, who must answer them in writing under oath; a discovery device in a lawsuit.
• Issuer: means a bailee that issues a document of title or, in the case of an unaccepted delivery order, the person that orders the possessor of goods to deliver. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 7.102
• Knowingly: means actual awareness, at the time of the act or practice complained of, of the falsity, deception, or unfairness of the act or practice giving rise to the consumer's claim or, in an action brought under Subdivision (2) of Subsection (a) of Section Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Lawsuit: A legal action started by a plaintiff against a defendant based on a complaint that the defendant failed to perform a legal duty, resulting in harm to the plaintiff.
• Lineal descendant: Direct descendant of the same ancestors.
• Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
• Person: means an individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other group, however organized. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Pro se: A Latin term meaning "on one's own behalf"; in courts, it refers to persons who present their own cases without lawyers.
• Recourse: An arrangement in which a bank retains, in form or in substance, any credit risk directly or indirectly associated with an asset it has sold (in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles) that exceeds a pro rata share of the bank's claim on the asset. If a bank has no claim on an asset it has sold, then the retention of any credit risk is recourse. ^{Source: FDIC}
• Residence: means a building:
  (A) that is a single-family house, duplex, triplex, or quadruplex or a unit in a multiunit residential structure in which title to the individual units is transferred to the owners under a condominium or cooperative system; and
  (B) that is occupied or to be occupied as the consumer's residence. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Restitution: The court-ordered payment of money by the defendant to the victim for damages caused by the criminal action.
• Services: means work, labor, or service purchased or leased for use, including services furnished in connection with the sale or repair of goods. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Shipper: means a person that enters into a contract of transportation with a carrier. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 7.102
• Statute of limitations: A law that sets the time within which parties must take action to enforce their rights.
• Succeeding: means immediately following. See Texas Government Code 312.011
• Testator: A male person who leaves a will at death.
• Unconscionable action or course of action: means an act or practice which, to a consumer's detriment, takes advantage of the lack of knowledge, ability, experience, or capacity of the consumer to a grossly unfair degree. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45
• Warehouse: means a person engaged in the business of storing goods for hire. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 7.102
• Warrantor: means a person named under the terms of a vehicle protection product warranty as the contractual obligor to a person in this state who purchases or otherwise possesses a vehicle protection product. See Texas Business and Commerce Code 17.45