Terms Used In Louisiana Codes > Civil Code > BOOK III > Title XXIII - Occupancy and Possession

• 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.
• Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
• Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Bankruptcy: Refers to statutes and judicial proceedings involving persons or businesses that cannot pay their debts and seek the assistance of the court in getting a fresh start. Under the protection of the bankruptcy court, debtors may discharge their debts, perhaps by paying a portion of each debt. Bankruptcy judges preside over these proceedings.
• Birth certificate: means official documentation of the child's record of birth acceptable to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and, if the document is not in English, a certified translation of the document. See Louisiana Children's Code 1281.3
• Caretaker: means any person legally obligated to provide or secure adequate care for a child, including a parent, tutor, guardian, legal custodian, foster home parent, or other person providing a residence for the child. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Child: means a person under eighteen years of age and not emancipated by marriage. See Louisiana Children's Code 1169
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Convention adoption: means the adoption of a child habitually residing in any country outside the United States that is a party to the Hague Adoption Convention. See Louisiana Children's Code 1281.3
• 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.
• 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.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Department: means the Louisiana Department of Health. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Department: means the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services. See Louisiana Children's Code 1281.3
• Department: means the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services. See Louisiana Children's Code 1169
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Diagnosis: means the art and science of determining the presence of disease in an individual and distinguishing one disease from another. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Discharge: means the full or conditional release from a treatment facility of any minor admitted or otherwise detained under this Title. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
• Family psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner: means an individual who maintains the credentials as such and meets the requirements of a "psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner" as provided in Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Foreign orphan: means a child living in a Non-Hague Convention country (a) who is under the age of sixteen at the time a Form I-600, Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative, is filed on his behalf and who is found by the Department of State or United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to meet the definition of "orphan" under Section 101(b)(1)(F) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 USC 1101(b)(1)(F)); or (b) who is under the age of eighteen and is a biological sibling of a child previously adopted by the same applicant(s) who is petitioning on his behalf. See Louisiana Children's Code 1281.3
• Grand jury: agreement providing that a lender will delay exercising its rights (in the case of a mortgage,
• 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.
• 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.
• Hague Convention adoptee: means a child living in a Hague Convention country who is under the age of sixteen at the time a Form I-800, Petition to Classify Convention Adoptee as an Immediate Relative, is filed on his behalf and who is found by the Department of State and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to meet the definition of "Convention Adoptee" under Section 101(b)(1)(G) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 USC 1101(b)(1)(G)). See Louisiana Children's Code 1281.3
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• Inter vivos: Transfer of property from one living person to another living person.
• 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.
• Jurisprudence: The study of law and the structure of the legal system.
• 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}
• Legatee: A beneficiary of a decedent
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• MHAS: means Mental Health Advocacy Service, as established by Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• 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.
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• 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: means any person detained and taken care of as a person with mental illness or person suffering from substance abuse. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Probable cause: A reasonable ground for belief that the offender violated a specific law.
• Psychologist: means an individual licensed to practice psychology in Louisiana in accordance with Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• 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}
• Reporter: Makes a record of court proceedings and prepares a transcript, and also publishes the court's opinions or decisions (in the courts of appeals).
• Respondent: means a person alleged to be mentally ill or suffering from substance abuse and for whom an application for commitment to a treatment facility has been filed. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Restraint: means the partial or total immobilization of any or all of the extremities or the torso by mechanical means for psychiatric indications. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Seclusion: means the involuntary confinement of a patient alone in a room, which the patient is physically prevented from leaving, for any period of time, except that seclusion does not include the placement of a patient alone in a room or other area for no more than thirty minutes at a time and no more than three hours in any twenty-four hour time period pursuant to behavior-shaping techniques such as "time-out". See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Substance abuse: means the condition of a person who uses narcotic, stimulant, depressant, soporific, tranquilizing, or hallucinogenic drugs or alcohol to the extent that it renders the person dangerous to himself or others or renders the person gravely disabled. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• superintendent: means a person in charge of a treatment facility or his deputy. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Transcript: A written, word-for-word record of what was said, either in a proceeding such as a trial or during some other conversation, as in a transcript of a hearing or oral deposition.
• Treatment: means an active effort to accomplish an improvement in the mental condition or behavior of a patient or to prevent deterioration in his condition or behavior. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Treatment facility: means any public or private hospital, retreat, institution, mental health center, or facility licensed by the state of Louisiana in which any mentally ill minor or minor suffering from substance abuse is received or detained as a patient except a facility under the control or supervision of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections unless otherwise provided in Title VIII of this Code. See Louisiana Children's Code 1404
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.
• Writ: A formal written command, issued from the court, requiring the performance of a specific act.