Terms Used In Montana Code > Title 2 > Chapter 17 > Part 4 - Vehicles

• Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
• 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.
• Construction contract: means a written agreement between an owner and a contractor for the contractor to construct or improve or to provide construction management for the construction or improvement of an improvement to real property. See Montana Code 28-2-2101
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Contractor: means a person who has signed a construction contract with an owner. See Montana Code 28-2-2101
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Improve: means to build, alter, demolish, repair, construct, expand, cover, excavate, grade, fill, clear, plant, landscape, or furnish material or labor, or both for an improvement. See Montana Code 28-2-2101
• Improvement: means all or a part of a residential or commercial building, structure, area of real property, quantity of earth or fill material, tree or shrubbery, driveway, roadway, or parking area. See Montana Code 28-2-2101
• Indemnification: In general, a collateral contract or assurance under which one person agrees to secure another person against either anticipated financial losses or potential adverse legal consequences. ^{Source: FDIC}
• Knowingly: means only a knowledge that the facts exist which bring the act or omission within the provisions of this code. See Montana Code 1-1-204
• 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.
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• 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.
• Owner: means a governmental entity or private entity that has a legal interest in the real property improved or to be improved by the performance of the construction contract. See Montana Code 28-2-2101
• Person: includes a corporation or other entity as well as a natural person. See Montana Code 1-1-201
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Personal property: means money, goods, chattels, things in action, and evidences of debt. See Montana Code 1-1-205
• 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.
• Property: means real and personal property. See Montana Code 1-1-205
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Real property: means lands, tenements, hereditaments, and possessory title to public lands. See Montana Code 1-1-205
• receive: means actual receipt. See Montana Code 28-2-2101
• 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.
• Right of rescission: Right to cancel, within three business days, a contract that uses the home of a person as collateral, except in the case of a first mortgage loan. There is no fee to the borrower, who receives a full refund of all fees paid. The right of rescission is guaranteed by the Truth in Lending Act (TILA). ^{Source: OCC}
• Several: means two or more. See Montana Code 1-1-201
• State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See Montana Code 1-1-201
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Subcontract: means a contract between a contractor and a subcontractor or between a subcontractor and another subcontractor, the purpose of which is the performance of all or a part of the construction contract. See Montana Code 28-2-2101
• Subcontractor: means a person who has contracted with a contractor or another subcontractor for the purposes of performance of all or a part of a subcontract. See Montana Code 28-2-2101
• Third persons: means all persons who are not parties to the obligation or transaction concerning which the phrase is used. See Montana Code 1-1-206
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Uniform Commercial Code: A set of statutes enacted by the various states to provide consistency among the states' commercial laws. It includes negotiable instruments, sales, stock transfers, trust and warehouse receipts, and bills of lading. ^{Source: OCC}
• Usage: means a reasonable and lawful public custom concerning transactions of the same nature as those which are to be affected thereby, existing at the place where the obligation is to be performed, and either known to the parties or so well established, general, and uniform that the parties must be presumed to have acted with reference thereto. See Montana Code 1-1-206
• Usual: means according to usage. See Montana Code 1-1-206
• Writing: includes printing. See Montana Code 1-1-203