Terms Used In Arizona Laws > Title 40 > Chapter 2 - Public Service Corporations Generally

• Abandoned: means no longer in service and physically disconnected from a portion of the facility, or from any other facility, that is in use or still carries service. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• 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.
• 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.
• Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
• Apartment community: means any real property that has one or more structures and contains five or more dwelling units for rent or lease that are subject to Title 33, Chapter 10. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appellate: About appeals; an appellate court has the power to review the judgement of another lower court or tribunal.
• Appliance application: means central space heating, clothes drying, water heating and indoor cooking. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Area of jurisdiction: means the state, a county or an incorporated city or town that exercises concurrent or exclusive jurisdiction over a geographical area. See Arizona Laws 40-360
• Articles of incorporation: means the original or restated articles of incorporation or articles of merger and all amendments to the articles of incorporation or merger and includes amended and restated articles of incorporation and articles of amendment and merger. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Attorney-in-fact: A person who, acting as an agent, is given written authorization by another person to transact business for him (her) out of court.
• Authorized person: means :

  (a) An employee of a public utility that produces, transmits or delivers electricity. See Arizona Laws 40-360.41

• Authorized shares: means the shares of all classes that a domestic or foreign corporation is authorized to issue. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Beneficial shareholder: means the person who is a beneficial owner of shares held in a voting trust or by a nominee as the record shareholder. See Arizona Laws 10-1301
• Board of directors: means the group of persons vested with the management of the affairs of the corporation irrespective of the name by which the group is designated and includes the governing body or bodies of a water users' association if the articles of incorporation of the water users' association provide for a governing body or bodies denominated other than as a board of directors. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Building official: means the agency or officer employed by a political subdivision of this state and charged with the administration and enforcement of a building code to regulate the quality, type of material and workmanship of construction of buildings or structures. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• business entity: means those parties that contract to perform any function or activity on any land, building, highway or other premises. See Arizona Laws 40-360.41
• Bylaws: means the code of rules adopted for the regulation or management of the affairs of the corporation irrespective of the name by which those rules are designated. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Careful and prudent manner: means conducting an excavation in such a way that when the excavation is less than or equal to twenty-four inches from an underground facility that is marked with stakes or paint or in some customary manner, the facility is carefully exposed with hand tools, and the uncovered facility is supported and protected. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Carefully: means acting with reasonable care under the circumstances. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Certificate of environmental compatibility: means the certificate that is required by this article and that evidences the approval by the state of the sites for a plant or transmission line, or both. See Arizona Laws 40-360
• Class: refers to a group of memberships that have the same rights with respect to voting, dissolution, redemption and transfer. See Arizona Laws 10-3140
• Clerk: means the clerk of the board of supervisors or any person or officer who acts as clerk of the board of supervisors. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Commission: means the Arizona corporation commission. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Commission: means the corporation commission. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Commission: means the corporation commission. See Arizona Laws 40-360
• Committee: means the power plant and transmission line siting committee. See Arizona Laws 40-360
• Common carrier: means a railroad or street railroad. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Continuance: Putting off of a hearing ot trial until a later time.
• conversion: means the removal of existing overhead electric or communication facilities and the replacement thereof with underground electric or communication facilities constructed at the same or different locations. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Corporation: means the issuer of the shares held by a dissenter before the corporate action or the surviving or acquiring corporation by merger or share exchange of that issuer. See Arizona Laws 10-1301
• Court: means the superior court of this state. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Cross culverts or similar roadway drainage facilities: means transverse drainage structures with both ends or openings visible including box culverts, drainage pipes or other covered structures. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Customer: means the person in whose name a utility service is provided. See Arizona Laws 40-491
• 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.
• Deliver: includes sending by mail, private courier, fax or electronic transmission. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Deposition: An oral statement made before an officer authorized by law to administer oaths. Such statements are often taken to examine potential witnesses, to obtain discovery, or to be used later in trial.
• Detectible underground location device: means any device that is installed underground and that is capable of being detected from above ground with an electronic locating device. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Director: means the director of the residential utility consumer office. See Arizona Laws 40-461
• Dissenter: means a shareholder who is entitled to dissent from corporate action under section 10-1302 and who exercises that right when and in the manner required by article 2 of this chapter. See Arizona Laws 10-1301
• Distribution: means a direct or indirect transfer of money or other property, except its own shares, or incurrence of indebtedness by a corporation to or for the benefit of its shareholders in respect of any of its shares. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• domestic corporation: means a corporation for profit that is not a foreign corporation and that is incorporated under or subject to chapters 1 through 17 of this title. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Electric distribution facilities: means all property used in connection with the distribution of electricity from an electric generating plant to retail electric customers except electric transmission facilities. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Electric distribution service: means the distribution of electricity to retail electric customers through the use of electric distribution facilities. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Electric distribution utility: means a public service corporation or public power entity that operates, controls or maintains electric distribution facilities. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Electric generation service: means the provision of electricity for sale to retail electric customers but does not include electric distribution or transmission services and generation that are necessary for the reliable operation of the electric distribution or transmission system. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Electric or communication facilities: means any works or improvements used or useful in providing electric, communication or cable television service or video service, including poles, supports, tunnels, manholes, vaults, conduits, pipes, wires, conductors, guys, stubs, platforms, crossarms, braces, transformers, insulators, cutouts, switches, capacitors, meters, communication circuits, appliances, attachments and appurtenances. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• electric service: means electric energy, electric capacity or electric capacity and energy. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Electric transmission facilities: means all property so classified by the federal energy regulatory commission or, to the extent permitted by law, so classified by the Arizona corporation commission. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Electric transmission service: means the transmission of electricity to retail electric customers or to electric distribution facilities that is so classified by the federal energy regulatory commission or, to the extent permitted by law, so classified by the Arizona corporation commission. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Electricity supplier: means a person, whether acting in a principal, agent or other capacity, that is a public service corporation that offers to sell electricity to a retail electric customer in this state. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Entity: includes a corporation, foreign corporation, not for profit corporation, profit and not for profit unincorporated association, nonprofit corporation, close corporation, corporation sole or limited liability company, a professional corporation, association or limited liability company, a business trust, estate, partnership, registered limited liability partnership, trust or joint venture, two or more persons having a joint or common economic interest, any person other than an individual and a state, the United States and a foreign government. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• 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.
• Excavation: means any operation in which earth, rock or other material in the ground is moved, removed or otherwise displaced by means or use of any tools, equipment or explosives and includes, without limitation, grading, trenching, digging, ditching, drilling, augering, boring, tunnelling, scraping, cable or pipe plowing and driving. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
• Facilities: means a plant or transmission line, or both. See Arizona Laws 40-360
• Facilities: means corridors used by a utility to provide service to customers including poles, towers, transformers and lines for the transmission of electric energy at nominal voltages of one hundred fifteen thousand volts or more, natural gas pipelines of twenty-four or more inches in diameter and substations, regulator stations, measurement stations and compressor stations. See Arizona Laws 40-360.51
• Facility plan: means a plan for the future location of facilities developed by a utility. See Arizona Laws 40-360.51
• Filing: means the commission completing the following procedure with respect to any document delivered for that purpose:

  (a) Determining that the filing fee requirements of section 10-122 have been satisfied. See Arizona Laws 10-140

• 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.
• Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Grantee: includes every person to whom an estate or interest in real property passes, in or by a deed. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• High voltage: means voltage in excess of six hundred volts measured between conductors or between a conductor and the ground. See Arizona Laws 40-360.41
• Inactive: means :

  (a) That portion of an underground facility that is not in use but is still connected to the facility, or to any other facility, that is in use or still carries service. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21

• Individual: includes the estate of an incompetent or deceased individual. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• Installation records of an underground facility: means maps, drawings, diagrams, surveys, schematics, illustrations, sketches or any other depictions or descriptions of an underground facility that reflect the location at the time of installation of the underground facility and any surface extensions in a reasonably accurate manner. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Interest: means interest from the effective date of the corporate action until the date of payment at the average rate currently paid by the corporation on its principal bank loans or, if none, at a rate that is fair and equitable under the circumstances. See Arizona Laws 10-1301
• Interest rate: The amount paid by a borrower to a lender in exchange for the use of the lender's money for a certain period of time. Interest is paid on loans or on debt instruments, such as notes or bonds, either at regular intervals or as part of a lump sum payment when the issue matures. ^{Source: OCC}
• 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}
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Local government: means the city or town council if all or any part of the underground conversion service area is located within the limits of an incorporated city or town or the county board of supervisors if the underground conversion service area is located in an unincorporated area. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Locator strip: means a type of detectible underground location device that consists of a plastic or other durable material ribbon containing a material capable of being detected from above ground with an electronic locating device and color coded by type of underground facility. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Locator wire: means a type of detectible underground location device that consists of a copper wire or metallic, conductive, noncorrosive trace wire capable of being detected from above ground with an electronic locating device. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Lot: includes any portion, piece, parcel or subdivision of land, but not property owned or controlled by any person as a right of way. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Member: means the state official named herein, the employee designee thereof from the department, agency or governing body of such state official member and the public members designated herein. See Arizona Laws 40-360
• Minor: means a person under eighteen years of age. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Municipality: means a city or town chartered or incorporated under the laws of this state. See Arizona Laws 40-360.51
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• Oath: includes an affirmation or declaration. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• 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.
• Office: means the residential utility consumer office. See Arizona Laws 40-461
• One-call notification center: means an organization of owners or operators of underground facilities that provides a telephone number notification service for the purpose of receiving and distributing to its members advance notifications from persons regarding planned excavations. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Oral argument: An opportunity for lawyers to summarize their position before the court and also to answer the judges' questions.
• Outlays: Outlays are payments made (generally through the issuance of checks or disbursement of cash) to liquidate obligations. Outlays during a fiscal year may be for payment of obligations incurred in prior years or in the same year.
• Overhead electric or communication facilities: means electric or communication facilities located above the surface of the ground, except as provided for in paragraphs 3 and 12 of this section. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Overhead line: means all bare or insulated electrical conductors installed aboveground. See Arizona Laws 40-360.41
• Owner: means the person in whom legal title appears by recorded deed, or the person in possession under claim of title, or the person exercising acts of ownership for the person or as the personal representative of the owner, including the boards of trustees of school districts and the boards of education of high school districts owning property within the underground conversion service area. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Person: includes an individual and entity. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Person: means any state or agency or political subdivision thereof, or any individual, partnership, joint venture, corporation, city or county, whether located within or without this state, or any combination of such entities. See Arizona Laws 40-360
• Person: means any individual, firm, joint venture, partnership, corporation, association, homeowners' association, municipality, governmental unit, department or agency and shall include any trustee, receiver, assignee or personal representative thereof. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Person: means an individual, partnership, firm, association or corporation. See Arizona Laws 40-491
• Petty offense: A federal misdemeanor punishable by six months or less in prison. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Pipeline: includes all property used in transmission for compensation of air, steam or fluid substances, except water, through pipelines. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Plan: means a plan of merger, interest exchange, conversion, domestication or division. See Arizona Laws 10-1101
• Planning area: means outside the extraterritorial jurisdiction limits of a municipality described in Section 9-461. See Arizona Laws 40-360.51
• Plant: means each separate thermal electric, nuclear or hydroelectric generating unit with a nameplate rating of one hundred megawatts or more for which expenditures or financial commitments for land acquisition, materials, construction or engineering exceeding $50,000 have not been made before August 13, 1971. See Arizona Laws 40-360
• 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.
• Population: means the population according to the most recent United States decennial census. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Proceeding: includes a civil suit and a criminal, administrative and investigatory action. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Process: means a citation, writ or summons issued in the course of judicial proceedings. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Property: includes both real and personal property. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Public agency: means any irrigation, power, electrical or agricultural improvement district now or hereafter organized that provides electric or communication service to the public by means of electric or communication facilities. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Public place: includes streets, alleys, roadways, sidewalks, rights of way, easements and similar properties as to which a city, town, county, the state, the public service corporation or the public agency may have a right. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Public service corporation: means any person or corporation that provides electric or communication service to the public by means of electric or communication facilities. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Public service corporation: means a public service corporation as defined in article XV, section 2, Constitution of Arizona except a member-owned nonprofit cooperative corporation. See Arizona Laws 40-461
• Public utility: includes public service corporations, municipally owned systems and districts subject to article XIII, section 7, Constitution of Arizona. See Arizona Laws 40-360.41
• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• Railroad: includes every railway, other than a street railroad, operated for public transportation of persons or property. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Real property: means the real estate owned in fee, but not inclusive of buildings or structures located thereon, or any property owned or controlled as a railroad or street right-of-way. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Reconnection: means the restoration of utility service to a customer or other person after service has been legally disconnected by the utility. See Arizona Laws 40-491
• Record shareholder: means the person in whose name shares are registered in the records of a corporation or the beneficial owner of shares to the extent of the rights granted by a nominee certificate on file with a corporation. See Arizona Laws 10-1301
• 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}
• Registered mail: includes certified mail. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Remand: When an appellate court sends a case back to a lower court for further proceedings.
• 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).
• Rescission: The cancellation of budget authority previously provided by Congress. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 specifies that the President may propose to Congress that funds be rescinded. If both Houses have not approved a rescission proposal (by passing legislation) within 45 days of continuous session, any funds being withheld must be made available for obligation.
• Residential structure: means a detached owner-occupied or rental one or two family dwelling unit, an attached duplex or fourplex unit, a manufactured home, a residential factory-built building as defined in section 41-4001 or a mobile home designed to be used with a permanent structure, excluding real property used to accommodate more than four attached dwelling units. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Retail electric customer: means a person who purchases electricity for that person's own use, including use in that person's trade or business, and not for resale, redistribution or retransmission. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Routine road maintenance grading: means the routine grading or resurfacing of the concrete, asphaltic or composite surface but not the subbase of a roadway by the state or a political subdivision of the state for the purpose of maintaining the surface condition of the road and includes recovery of material from a borrow ditch. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Service territory: means the geographic area in which a public power entity as defined in section 30-801 or public service corporation owns, operates, controls or maintains electric distribution facilities or natural gas distribution facilities and that additional area in which the public power entity or public service corporation has agreed to extend electric distribution facilities or natural gas distribution facilities, whether established by a certificate of convenience and necessity, by official action by a public power entity or by contract or agreement. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Sewer corporation: includes every person owning, controlling, operating or managing any sewage system for profit. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Shareholder: means the person in whose name shares are registered in the records of a corporation or the beneficial owner of shares to the extent of the rights granted by a nominee certificate on file with a corporation. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Shareholder: means the record shareholder or the beneficial shareholder. See Arizona Laws 10-1301
• Shares: means the units into which the proprietary interests in a corporation are divided. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Stakes or paint or in some customary manner: means marking the location of an underground facility by the colors established by the commission. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Street railroad: includes every railway operated along any street or public way for public transportation of persons or property, but does not include a commercial or interurban railway. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• tampering: means any of the following if committed against property that is owned or operated by the utility for transmission or distribution:

  (a) Rearranging, damaging, altering, interfering with or otherwise preventing the performance of a normal or customary function of utility property. See Arizona Laws 40-491

• Telecommunications corporation: means a public service corporation other than municipal engaged in transmitting messages or furnishing public telegraph or telephone service or operating as a telecommunications common carrier. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Telegraph line: includes all property used in connection with communication by telegraph for compensation with or without the use of transmission wires. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Telephone line: includes all property used in connection with communication by telephone, for compensation, with or without the use of transmission wires. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Transaction: means a merger, an interest exchange, a conversion, a domestication or a division. See Arizona Laws 10-1101
• 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.
• Transmission line: means five or more new structures that span more than one mile in length as measured from the first structure outside of the substation, switchyard or generating site to which the line connects to the fifth structure and that are erected above ground and support one or more conductors designed for the transmission of electric energy at nominal voltages of one hundred fifteen thousand volts or more and all new switchyards to be used therewith and related thereto for which expenditures or financial commitments for land acquisition, materials, construction or engineering exceeding $50,000 have not been made before August 13, 1971. See Arizona Laws 40-360
• Transportation of persons: includes every service in connection with the carriage and delivery of a person and the person's baggage. See Arizona Laws 40-201
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Underground conversion cost: means the costs to be paid by each owner to each public service corporation or public agency by the property owners within an underground conversion service area, as provided in this article. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Underground conversion service area: means an area in which existing electric and communication facilities are to be placed underground, exclusive of any lines or facilities used or intended to be used for the transmission of electric energy at nominal voltages in excess of twenty-five thousand volts or having a circuit capacity in excess of twelve thousand kVA and facilities used or intended to be used for the transmission of intelligence by microwave or radio and facilities such as transformers, pull boxes, service terminals, pedestal terminals, splice closures, apparatus cabinets and similar facilities that normally are above the surface in areas where service lines are underground in accordance with standard underground practices, and on-the-ground facilities attached to overhead facilities that are used to connect an underground system to overhead facilities. See Arizona Laws 40-341
• Underground facilities operator: means a public utility, municipal corporation, landlord or other person having the right to bury underground facilities in any public street, alley, right-of-way dedicated to the public use or public utility easement, in any apartment community or mobile home park or pursuant to any express or implied private property easement. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Underground facility: means any item of personal property that is buried or placed below ground for use in connection with the storage or conveyance of water, sewage, electronic, telephonic or telegraphic communications, electric energy, oil, gas or other substances, and shall include but not be limited to pipes, sewers, conduits, cables, valves, lines, wires, manholes, attachments and those portions of poles and their attachments below ground except cross culverts or similar roadway drainage facilities and landscape irrigation systems of two inches in diameter or less. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• United States: includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Utility: means any person engaged in the generation or transmission of electric energy. See Arizona Laws 40-360
• Utility: means any retail provider of electric or natural gas services. See Arizona Laws 40-360.51
• Utility: means any public service corporation, licensed cable television system or video service network, telephone line or telegraph line corporation or person engaged in the generation, transmission or delivery of electricity, gas, telephone, cable television, telegraph or water service, including this state or any political subdivision or agency of this state. See Arizona Laws 40-491
• Utility service: means the provision of services or commodities by the utility for compensation. See Arizona Laws 40-491
• Vote: includes authorization by written ballot and written consent. See Arizona Laws 10-3140
• Voting group: means all shares of one or more classes or series that under the articles of incorporation or chapters 1 through 17 of this title are entitled to vote and be counted together collectively on a matter at a meeting of shareholders. See Arizona Laws 10-140
• Working day: means every day excluding Saturday of each week, the fourth Friday in November, Sunday of each week and other legal holidays as prescribed in section 1-301. See Arizona Laws 40-360.21
• Writing: includes printing. See Arizona Laws 1-215