Terms Used In Florida Statutes > Chapter 497 > Part II - Cemetery Regulation

• 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.
• Agreement materials: means those materials licensed by the state, under agreement with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission or its successor agency, which include byproduct, source, or special nuclear materials in a quantity not sufficient to form a critical mass, as defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Agreement state: means any state which has consummated an agreement with the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission under the authority of…. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• 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.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Bank of belowground crypts: means any construction unit of belowground crypts that is acceptable to the department and that a cemetery uses to initiate its belowground crypt program or to add to existing belowground crypt structures. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Belowground crypts: consist of interment space in preplaced chambers, either side by side or multiple depth, covered by earth and sod and known also as "lawn crypts" "westminsters" or "turf-top crypts. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Board: means the Board of Funeral, Cemetery, and Consumer Services. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Burial right: means the right to use a grave space, mausoleum, columbarium, ossuary, or scattering garden for the interment, entombment, inurnment, or other disposition of human remains or cremated remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Byproduct material: means any radioactive material, except special nuclear material, yielded in or made radioactive by exposure to the radiation incident to the process of producing or utilizing special nuclear material. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Care and maintenance: means the perpetual process of keeping a cemetery and its lots, graves, grounds, landscaping, roads, paths, parking lots, fences, mausoleums, columbaria, vaults, crypts, utilities, and other improvements, structures, and embellishments in a well-cared-for and dignified condition, so that the cemetery does not become a nuisance or place of reproach and desolation in the community. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Casket: means a rigid container that is designed for the encasement of human remains and that is usually constructed of wood or metal, ornamented, and lined with fabric. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Cemetery: means a place dedicated to and used or intended to be used for the permanent interment of human remains or cremated remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Cemetery company: means any legal entity that owns or controls cemetery lands or property. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Columbarium: means a structure or building that is substantially exposed above the ground and that is intended to be used for the inurnment of cremated remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Commercial low-level radioactive waste management facility: means a parcel of land, together with the structures, equipment, and improvements thereon or appurtenant thereto, which is used or is being developed by a person for the treatment, storage, or disposal of low-level radioactive waste other than that person's own generated waste. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Commercial low-level radioactive waste management license: means a specific license issued, after application, to a person to construct, operate, or provide for the closure and stabilization of a treatment, storage, or disposal facility in order to treat, store, or dispose of low-level radioactive waste other than that person's own generated waste. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Control: means the possession, directly or indirectly, through the ownership of voting shares, by contract, arrangement, understanding, relationship, or otherwise, of the power to direct or cause the direction of the management and policies of a person or entity. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• 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.
• Cremated remains: means all the remains of the human body recovered after the completion of the cremation process, including processing or pulverization that leaves only bone fragments reduced to unidentifiable dimensions and may include the residue of any foreign matter, including casket material, bridgework, or eyeglasses that were cremated with the human remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Cremation: means any mechanical or thermal process whereby a dead human body is reduced to ashes and bone fragments. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Department: means the Department of Health. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Department: means the Department of Environmental Protection. See Florida Statutes 403.281
• Department: means the Department of Financial Services. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Director: means the director of the Division of Funeral, Cemetery, and Consumer Services. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Disinterment: means removal of a dead human body from earth interment or aboveground interment. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Division: means the Division of Funeral, Cemetery, and Consumer Services within the Department of Financial Services. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Docket: A log containing brief entries of court proceedings.
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• Emergency: means any condition existing outside the bounds of nuclear operating sites owned or licensed by a federal agency, and further means any condition existing within or outside the jurisdictional confines of a facility licensed by the department and arising from byproduct material, source material, special nuclear materials, or other radioactive materials, which is endangering, or could reasonably be expected to endanger, the health and safety of the public or to contaminate the environment. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• 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.
• Fair market value: The price at which an asset would change hands in a transaction between a willing, informed buyer and a willing, informed seller.
• Fair market value: means the fair market value of assets held by a trust as of a specific date, assuming all assets of the trust are sold on that specific date. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Fee simple: Absolute title to property with no limitations or restrictions regarding the person who may inherit it.
• 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.
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
• Grave space: means a space of ground in a cemetery intended to be used for the interment in the ground of human remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• 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.
• Income: means earnings on trust assets, including interest, dividends, and other income earned on the principal. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• individual: includes both natural persons and legal entities. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• Ionizing radiation: means gamma rays and X rays, alpha and beta particles, high-speed electrons, protons, neutrons, and other nuclear particles, but not sound or radio waves or infrared, ultraviolet, or visible light. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• 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}
• Legally authorized person: means , in the priority listed:
  1. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• License: includes all authorizations required or issued under this chapter, except where expressly indicated otherwise, and shall be understood to include authorizations previously referred to as registrations or certificates of authority in chapters 470 and 497 as those chapters appeared in the 2004 edition of the Florida Statutes. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Licensee: means the person or entity holding any license or other authorization issued under this chapter, except where expressly indicated otherwise. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Mausoleum: means a structure or building that is substantially exposed above the ground and that is intended to be used for the entombment of human remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Mausoleum section: means any construction unit of a mausoleum that is acceptable to the department and that a cemetery uses to initiate its mausoleum program or to add to its existing mausoleum structures. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• merchandise: means any personal property offered or sold by any person for use in connection with the final disposition, memorialization, interment, entombment, or inurnment of human remains or cremated remains, including, but not limited to, caskets, outer burial containers, alternative containers, cremation containers, cremation interment containers, urns, monuments, private mausoleums, flowers, benches, vases, acknowledgment cards, register books, memory folders, prayer cards, and clothing. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Monument: means any product used for identifying a grave site and cemetery memorials of all types, including monuments, markers, and vases. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• National Bank: A bank that is subject to the supervision of the Comptroller of the Currency. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department. A national bank can be recognized because it must have "national" or "national association" in its name. ^{Source: OCC}
• Net income: means , in relation to a trust, ordinary income minus any income distributions for items such as trust expenses. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Net worth: means total assets minus total liabilities pursuant to generally accepted accounting principles. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Niche: means a compartment or cubicle for the memorialization or permanent placement of a container or urn containing cremated remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Nolo contendere: No contest-has the same effect as a plea of guilty, as far as the criminal sentence is concerned, but may not be considered as an admission of guilt for any other purpose.
• 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.
• Ossuary: means a receptacle used for the communal placement of cremated remains without benefit of an urn or any other container in which cremated remains may be commingled with other cremated remains and are nonrecoverable. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Outer burial container: means an enclosure into which a casket is placed and includes, but is not limited to, vaults made of concrete, steel, fiberglass, or copper; sectional concrete enclosures; crypts; and wooden enclosures. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• 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.
• Person: means any individual, corporation, partnership, firm, association, trust, estate, public or private institution, group, agency, political subdivision of this state, any other state, or political subdivision or agency thereof, and any legal successor, representative, agent, or agency of the foregoing, other than the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or any successor thereto, and other than Federal Government agencies licensed by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or any successors thereto. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Person: includes any public or private corporation. See Florida Statutes 403.281
• Person: when used without qualification such as "natural" or "individual" includes both natural persons and legal entities. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• person: includes individuals, children, firms, associations, joint adventures, partnerships, estates, trusts, business trusts, syndicates, fiduciaries, corporations, and all other groups or combinations. See Florida Statutes 1.01
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• 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.
• political subdivision: include counties, cities, towns, villages, special tax school districts, special road and bridge districts, bridge districts, and all other districts in this state. See Florida Statutes 1.01
• 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.
• Preliminary hearing: A hearing where the judge decides whether there is enough evidence to make the defendant have a trial.
• Preneed: means any arrangement or method, of which the provider of funeral merchandise or services has actual knowledge, whereby any person agrees to furnish funeral merchandise or service in the future. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Preneed contract: means any arrangement or method for which the provider of funeral merchandise or services receives any payment in advance for funeral or burial merchandise and services after the death of the contract beneficiary. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Presiding officer: A majority-party Senator who presides over the Senate and is charged with maintaining order and decorum, recognizing Members to speak, and interpreting the Senate's rules, practices and precedents.
• Principal: means and includes the sole proprietor of a sole proprietorship; all partners of a partnership; all members of a limited liability company; regarding a corporation, all directors and officers, and all stockholders controlling more than 10 percent of the voting stock; and all other persons who can exercise control over the person or entity. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Processing: means the reduction of identifiable bone fragments after the completion of the cremation process to unidentifiable bone fragments by manual means. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Purchaser: means a person who executes a preneed or an at-need contract with a licensee for merchandise or services. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Radiation: means ionizing radiation. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Radiation machine: means any device designed to produce, or which produces, radiation or nuclear particles when the associated control devices of the machine are operated. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Radioactive material: means any solid, liquid, or gas which emits ionizing radiation spontaneously; however, this definition does not include radioactive wastes regulated pursuant to the hazardous waste management sections of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 or the Department of Environmental Protection's assumption of that program. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Radioactive waste: means any equipment or materials which are radioactive or have radioactive contamination and which are required pursuant to any governing laws, regulations, or licenses to be stored, treated, or disposed of as radioactive waste. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Registration: means the registering of a radiation machine with the department in accordance with the rules promulgated pursuant to this chapter. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Religious institution: means an organization formed primarily for religious purposes that has qualified for exemption from federal income tax as an exempt organization under the provisions of…. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• 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.
• 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.
• Rules: refers to rules adopted under this chapter unless expressly indicated to the contrary. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Scattering garden: means a location set aside, within a cemetery, that is used for the spreading or broadcasting of cremated remains that have been removed from their container and can be mixed with or placed on top of the soil or ground cover or buried in an underground receptacle on a commingled basis and that are nonrecoverable. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• service: means any service offered or provided in connection with the final disposition, memorialization, interment, entombment, or inurnment of human remains or cremated remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• 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.
• Solicitation: means any communication that directly or implicitly requests an immediate oral response from the recipient. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Source material: means :
  (a) Uranium, thorium, or any other material which the department declares to be source material after the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or any successor thereto, has determined the material to be such; or
  (b) Ores containing one or more of the foregoing materials in such concentration to be source material. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Sources of radiation: means , collectively, radioactive material and radiation machines. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Special nuclear material: means :
  (a) Plutonium, uranium 233, uranium 235, uranium enriched in the isotope 233 or in the isotope 235, and any other material which the department declares to be a special nuclear material after the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or any successor thereto, has determined the material to be such, but does not include source material; or
  (b) Any material artificially enriched by any of the foregoing, but does not include source material. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Specific license: means a license, issued after application, to use, manufacture, produce, transfer, receive, acquire, own, or possess quantities of, or devices or equipment utilizing, byproduct material, source material, special nuclear material, or other radioactive material occurring naturally or produced artificially. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Testify: Answer questions in court.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Total return withdrawal percentage: means a percentage, not to exceed 5 percent, of the fair market value of a trust. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• 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.
• Transuranic waste: means waste material containing transuranic elements with contamination levels greater than 10 nanocuries per gram of waste. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Trust account: A general term that covers all types of accounts in a trust department, such as estates, guardianships, and agencies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission: means the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission or its successor agency. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• Urn: means a receptacle designed to permanently encase cremated remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
• Useful beam: means that portion of the radiation emitted from a radiation machine through the aperture of the machine's beam-limiting device which is designed to focus the radiation on the intended target in order to accomplish the machine's purpose when the machine's exposure controls are in a mode to cause the system to produce radiation. See Florida Statutes 404.031
• veteran: means a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service and who was discharged or released under honorable conditions only or who later received an upgraded discharge under honorable conditions, notwithstanding any action by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs on individuals discharged or released with other than honorable discharges. See Florida Statutes 1.01
• writing: includes handwriting, printing, typewriting, and all other methods and means of forming letters and characters upon paper, stone, wood, or other materials. See Florida Statutes 1.01