Terms Used In Massachusetts General Laws > Chapter 150B - Peaceful Settlement of Industrial Disputes Dangerous to Public Health and Safety

• 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
• 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.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Distribution: includes distributing, transporting, handling, storing, selling at wholesale or retail, or furnishing and shall also include any process or occupation necessary to such distribution. See Massachusetts General Laws ch. 150B sec. 2
• Employee: shall include any employee, and shall not be limited to the employees of a particular employer, and shall include any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment. See Massachusetts General Laws ch. 150B sec. 2
• Employer: includes any person acting in the interest of an employer, directly or indirectly, but shall not include the commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof, or any labor organization (other than when acting as an employer), or any one acting in the capacity of officer or agent of such labor organization. See Massachusetts General Laws ch. 150B sec. 2
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Essential goods or services: means food, fuel, water, electric light or power, gas, and hospital or medical services. See Massachusetts General Laws ch. 150B sec. 2
• 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.
• 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.
• Labor dispute: includes any controversy concerning rates of pay, wages, hours or terms, tenure or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee. See Massachusetts General Laws ch. 150B sec. 2
• Person: includes one or more individuals, partnerships, associations, corporations, legal representatives, trustees, trustees in bankruptcy, or receivers. See Massachusetts General Laws ch. 150B sec. 2
• Production: includes production, manufacture, mining, handling, transporting, or in any other manner working on, and shall also include any process or occupation necessary to such production. See Massachusetts General Laws ch. 150B sec. 2
• 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.
• 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.