Terms Used In New York Laws > Town > Article 3-A > Title 4 - Town Departments

• Affirmed: In the practice of the appellate courts, the decree or order is declared valid and will stand as rendered in the lower court.
• 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.
• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• Employee: includes any individual employed or permitted to work by an employer on a farm but shall not include: (a) domestic service in the home of the employer; (b) the parent, spouse, child or other member of the employer's immediate family; (c) a minor under seventeen years of age employed as a hand harvest worker on the same farm as his parent or guardian and who is paid on a piece-rate basis at the same piece rate as employees seventeen years of age or over; or (d) an individual employed or permitted to work for a federal, state, or a municipal government or political subdivision thereof. See N.Y. Labor Law 671
• Employer: includes any individual, partnership, association, corporation, cooperative, business trust, legal representative, or any organized group of persons acting as an employer of an individual employed or permitted to work on a farm. See N.Y. Labor Law 671
• Escrow: Money given to a third party to be held for payment until certain conditions are met.
• 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.
• Farm: includes stock, dairy, poultry, furbearing animal, fruit and truck farms, plantations, orchards, nurseries, greenhouses, or other similar structures, used primarily for the raising of agricultural or horticultural commodities. See N.Y. Labor Law 671
• 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.
• Oral argument: An opportunity for lawyers to summarize their position before the court and also to answer the judges' questions.
• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• 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.
• Wage: includes allowances in the amount determined in accordance with the provisions of this article for meals, lodging, and other items, service and facilities when furnished by the employer to his employees. See N.Y. Labor Law 671
• Work agreement: means a job service recruitment or placement order; a farm labor contract or migrant labor registration; an agricultural employment contract executed by the employer or its representative with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or with the representatives of a foreign government; an agreement voluntarily entered into by the employer and the worker; or any comparable agreement. See N.Y. Labor Law 671