Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 38.2 > Chapter 1 - General Provisions

• Accident and sickness insurance: means insurance against loss resulting from sickness, or from bodily injury or death by accident or accidental means, or from a combination of any or all of these perils. See Virginia Code 38.2-109
• Advance directive: means (i) a witnessed written document, voluntarily executed by the declarant in accordance with the requirements of § Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Advanced practice registered nurse: means a certified nurse midwife, certified registered nurse anesthetist, clinical nurse specialist, or nurse practitioner who is jointly licensed by the Boards of Medicine and Nursing pursuant to § Virginia Code 54.1-2900
• Affidavit: A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.
• Affirmed: In the practice of the appellate courts, the decree or order is declared valid and will stand as rendered in the lower court.
• Agent: means an adult appointed by the declarant under an advance directive, executed or made in accordance with the provisions of § Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• 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.
• Annuities: means all agreements to make periodic payments in specified or calculable sums pursuant to the terms of a contract for a stated period of time or for the life of the person or persons specified in the contract. See Virginia Code 38.2-106
• annuity: shall be deemed to include "variable annuity" and "modified guaranteed annuity" and shall be deemed to include a contract under which a lump sum cash settlement is an alternative to the option of periodic payments. See Virginia Code 38.2-106
• Annuity: A periodic (usually annual) payment of a fixed sum of money for either the life of the recipient or for a fixed number of years. A series of payments under a contract from an insurance company, a trust company, or an individual. Annuity payments are made at regular intervals over a period of more than one full year.
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Attending physician: means the primary physician who has responsibility for the health care of the patient. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Attorney: means the person designated and authorized by subscribers as the attorney-in-fact having authority to obligate them on reciprocal insurance contracts. See Virginia Code 38.2-1201
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Board: means the Board of Medicine. See Virginia Code 54.1-2900
• business of insurance: include solicitation, negotiations preliminary to execution, execution of an insurance contract, and the transaction of matters subsequent to execution of the contract and arising out of it. See Virginia Code 38.2-100
• Capacity reviewer: means a licensed physician or clinical psychologist who is qualified by training or experience to assess whether a person is capable or incapable of making an informed decision. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• 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
• 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.
• Commission: means the State Corporation Commission. See Virginia Code 38.2-100
• 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.
• Company: means any association, aggregate of individuals, business, corporation, individual, joint-stock company, Lloyds type of organization, organization, partnership, receiver, reciprocal or interinsurance exchange, trustee or society. See Virginia Code 38.2-100
• Consultation: means communicating data and information, exchanging clinical observations and assessments, accessing and assessing additional resources and expertise, problem-solving, and arranging for referrals, testing, or studies. See Virginia Code 54.1-2900
• 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.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Declarant: means an adult who makes an advance directive, as defined in this article, while capable of making and communicating an informed decision. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Department: means the Department of Historic Resources. See Virginia Code 10.1-2200
• Director: means the Director of the Department of Historic Resources. See Virginia Code 10.1-2200
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• Durable Do Not Resuscitate Order: means a written physician's order issued pursuant to § Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• 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.
• Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
• farm: means any person that obtains at least 51 percent of its annual gross income from agricultural operations and produces the agricultural waste used as feedstock for the waste-to-energy technology, (ii) "agricultural waste" means biomass waste materials capable of decomposition that are produced from the raising of plants and animals during agricultural operations, including animal manures, bedding, plant stalks, hulls, and vegetable matter, and (iii) "waste-to-energy technology" means any technology, including but not limited to a methane digester, that converts agricultural waste into gas, steam, or heat that is used to generate electricity on-site. See Virginia Code 1-222.1
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Fiduciary: shall include any one or more of the following:

  a. See Virginia Code 8.01-2

• 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.
• Forgery: The fraudulent signing or alteration of another's name to an instrument such as a deed, mortgage, or check. The intent of the forgery is to deceive or defraud. ^{Source: OCC}
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• 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}
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Guarantor: A party who agrees to be responsible for the payment of another party's debts should that party default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Health care: means the furnishing of services to any individual for the purpose of preventing, alleviating, curing, or healing human illness, injury or physical disability, including but not limited to, medications; surgery; blood transfusions; chemotherapy; radiation therapy; admission to a hospital, nursing home, assisted living facility, or other health care facility; psychiatric or other mental health treatment; and life-prolonging procedures and palliative care. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• in writing: include any representation of words, letters, symbols, numbers, or figures, whether (i) printed or inscribed on a tangible medium or (ii) stored in an electronic or other medium and retrievable in a perceivable form and whether an electronic signature authorized by Virginia Code 1-257
• Incapable of making an informed decision: means the inability of an adult patient, because of mental illness, intellectual disability, or any other mental or physical disorder that precludes communication or impairs judgment, to make an informed decision about providing, continuing, withholding or withdrawing a specific health care treatment or course of treatment because he is unable to understand the nature, extent or probable consequences of the proposed health care decision, or to make a rational evaluation of the risks and benefits of alternatives to that decision. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Includes: means includes, but not limited to. See Virginia Code 1-218
• Insurance company: means any company engaged in the business of making contracts of insurance. See Virginia Code 38.2-100
• Insurer: means an insurance company. See Virginia Code 38.2-100
• 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.
• Juror: A person who is on the jury.
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Life insurance: includes policies that also provide (i) endowment benefits; (ii) additional benefits incidental to a loss in the event of death, dismemberment, or loss by accident or accidental means; (iii) additional benefits to safeguard the contract from lapse or to provide a special surrender value, a special benefit or an annuity, in the event of total and permanent disability of the insured; and (iv) optional modes of settlement of proceeds. See Virginia Code 38.2-102
• Life-prolonging procedure: means any medical procedure, treatment or intervention which (i) utilizes mechanical or other artificial means to sustain, restore or supplant a spontaneous vital function, or is otherwise of such a nature as to afford a patient no reasonable expectation of recovery from a terminal condition and (ii) when applied to a patient in a terminal condition, would serve only to prolong the dying process. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• 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.
• Patient care consulting committee: means a committee duly organized by a facility licensed to provide health care under Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Persistent vegetative state: means a condition caused by injury, disease or illness in which a patient has suffered a loss of consciousness, with no behavioral evidence of self-awareness or awareness of surroundings in a learned manner, other than reflex activity of muscles and nerves for low level conditioned response, and from which, to a reasonable degree of medical probability, there can be no recovery. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Person: means any association, aggregate of individuals, business, company, corporation, individual, joint-stock company, Lloyds type of organization, organization, partnership, receiver, reciprocal or interinsurance exchange, trustee or society. See Virginia Code 38.2-100
• person: includes an individual, his executor, administrator, or other personal representative, or a corporation, partnership, association or any other legal or commercial entity, whether or not a citizen or domiciliary of the Commonwealth and whether or not organized under the laws of the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 8.01-285
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Personal representative: includes the executor of a will or the administrator of the estate of a decedent, the administrator of such estate with the will annexed, the administrator of such estate unadministered by a former representative, whether there is a will or not, any person who is under the order of a circuit court to take into his possession the estate of a decedent for administration, and every other curator of a decedent's estate, for or against whom suits may be brought for causes of action that accrued to or against the decedent. See Virginia Code 1-234
• Physician: means a person licensed to practice medicine in the Commonwealth of Virginia or in the jurisdiction where the health care is to be rendered or withheld. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Physician assistant: means a health care professional who has met the requirements of the Board for licensure as a physician assistant. See Virginia Code 54.1-2900
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• 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.
• 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}
• process: shall be deemed to include notice;

  2. See Virginia Code 8.01-285

• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• rates: means any rate of premium, policy fee, membership fee or any other charge made by an insurer for or in connection with a contract or policy of insurance. See Virginia Code 38.2-100
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Reciprocal: means the aggregation of subscribers under a common name. See Virginia Code 38.2-1201
• return: shall be deemed to include the term "proof of service";

  3. See Virginia Code 8.01-285

• Service of process: The service of writs or summonses to the appropriate party.
• 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.
• Sheriff: shall include deputy sheriffs and such other persons designated in § Virginia Code 8.01-2
• State: means any commonwealth, state, territory, district or insular possession of the United States. See Virginia Code 38.2-100
• state agency: means the same as that term is defined in § Virginia Code 1-206
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• statutory agent: means (i) the Commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Secretary of the Commonwealth, and the successors of either, when appointed pursuant to law for the purpose of service of process on the nonresident defined in subdivision 2 of § Virginia Code 8.01-285
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Terminal condition: means a condition caused by injury, disease or illness from which, to a reasonable degree of medical probability a patient cannot recover and (i) the patient's death is imminent or (ii) the patient is in a persistent vegetative state. See Virginia Code 54.1-2982
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• 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
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Writ: A formal written command, issued from the court, requiring the performance of a specific act.