Terms Used In South Carolina Code > Title 38 > Chapter 13 - Examinations, Investigations, Records, and Reports

• Admitted assets: means assets of an insurer considered admitted on the most recent statutory financial statement of the insurer filed with the department pursuant to § 38-13-80. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• 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.
• Alien insurer: means an insurer incorporated or organized under the laws of a country other than the United States of America, its states, commonwealths, territories, or insular possessions. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Annuity: means each contract or agreement to make periodic payments, whether in fixed or variable dollar amounts, or both, at specified intervals. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Annuity: A periodic (usually annual) payment of a fixed sum of money for either the life of the recipient or for a fixed number of years. A series of payments under a contract from an insurance company, a trust company, or an individual. Annuity payments are made at regular intervals over a period of more than one full year.
• 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.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Authorized official: means a person acting on behalf of a manufactured home retail dealer. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Board: means the South Carolina Manufactured Housing Board. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Board: means the Board of Landscape Architectural Examiners. See South Carolina Code 40-28-20
• Board: means the State Licensing Board for Contractors (excluding mechanical contractors), the State Board of Architectural Examiners, or the State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers (excluding land surveyors), as is applicable to the person performing a commercial inspection. See South Carolina Code 40-26-10
• Casualty insurance: means each insurance against legal liability of the insured for bodily injury to or death of another person, including workers' compensation insurance, and for damages to or loss or destruction of the property of another person; medical payments insurance when written in conjunction with insurance covering liability for the deaths or bodily injuries of another person; guaranteeing the fidelity of a person holding a position of public or private trust; loss of or damage to property caused by burglary, theft, larceny, robbery, fraud, or unlawful taking or secretion of property owned by or entrusted to the insured; loss of or damage to property of the insured resulting from the explosion of or damage to a fired or unfired boiler or other pressure vessel, engine, turbine, compressor, pump, wheel, or an apparatus generating, transmitting, or using electric power, and machinery or equipment connected with any of them; loss resulting from nonpayment of debts owed to merchants or another person extending credit. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Commercial inspection: means the rendering of a written or oral report, for compensation of any sort, as to the condition of the construction or improvements to a commercial structure, including, but not limited to, structural problems and conditions, visible damage, safety problems or deterioration, and equipment and systems that are visible and readily accessible. See South Carolina Code 40-26-10
• Commercial inspector: means a natural person licensed, registered, or certified pursuant to Chapter 3 of this title or a natural person licensed as a general contractor pursuant to Chapter 11 of this title or a natural person licensed or registered as a professional engineer pursuant to Chapter 22 of this title, and who, for compensation of any sort, performs a commercial inspection. See South Carolina Code 40-26-10
• Commercial structure: means a building, highway, sewer, improvement, reimprovement, or structure, or part thereof, which is not a residence as defined in Article 3 of Chapter 59 of Title 40. See South Carolina Code 40-26-10
• 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.
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Construction and Safety Standards Act: means the Federal Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974, as amended. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Consumer: means a person who in good faith purchases a manufactured home or mobile home for purposes other than resale. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• 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.
• Credit Score: A number, roughly between 300 and 800, that measures an individual's credit worthiness. The most well-known type of credit score is the FICO score. This score represents the answer from a mathematical formula that assigns numerical values to various pieces of information in your credit report. ^{Source: OCC}
• Crop insurance: includes insurance providing protection against damage to crops from unfavorable weather conditions, fire, lightning, flood, hail, insect infestation, disease, or other yield-reducing conditions or perils provided by the private insurance market, or that is subsidized by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, including Multi-Peril Crop Insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Defect: includes a defect in the performance, construction, components, or material of a manufactured home that renders the home or any part of it not fit for the ordinary use for which it was intended. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Department: means the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation;
  
  (5) "Director" means the Director of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation or the director's official designee;
  
  (6) "Licensee" means a person granted an authorization to practice pursuant to this article and refers to a person holding a license, permit, certification, or registration granted pursuant to this article;
  
  (7) "Licensing act" means the individual statute or regulations, or both, of each regulated profession or occupation which include, but are not limited to, board governance, the qualifications and requirements for authorization to practice, prohibitions, and disciplinary procedures;
  
  (8) "Person" means an individual, partnership, or corporation;
  
  (9) "Profession" or "occupation" means a profession or occupation regulated or administered, or both, by the department pursuant to this article. See South Carolina Code 40-1-20
• Department: means the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. See South Carolina Code 40-28-20
• Department: means the Department of Insurance of South Carolina. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Director: means the person who is appointed by the Governor upon the advice and consent of the Senate and who is responsible for the operation and management of the department. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Domestic insurer: means an insurer incorporated or organized under the laws of this State. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Emeritus landscape architect: means a landscape architect who has been licensed for ten consecutive years or longer and who is sixty-five years of age or older and who is not engaging or offering to engage in the practice of landscape architecture as defined in this section. See South Carolina Code 40-28-20
• 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}
• Established place of business: means the office, building, or display area where the exercise of the ordinary and regular functions of the business are conducted for the purpose of carrying on the business of the owner and where books, records, files, inventory, and equipment necessary to properly conduct the business are maintained. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• 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.
• Ex officio: Literally, by virtue of one's office.
• Firm: means a business entity functioning as a sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability partnership, professional association, professional corporation, business corporation, limited liability company, joint venture, or other legally constituted organization that practices or offers to practice landscape architecture. See South Carolina Code 40-28-20
• 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}
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Freedom of Information Act: A federal law that mandates that all the records created and kept by federal agencies in the executive branch of government must be open for public inspection and copying. The only exceptions are those records that fall into one of nine exempted categories listed in the statute. ^{Source: OCC}
• Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• insurance: includes annuities. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Insurance company: means an "insurer". See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Insurer: includes a corporation, fraternal organization, burial association, other association, partnership, society, order, individual, or aggregation of individuals engaging or proposing or attempting to engage as principals in any kind of insurance or surety business, including the exchanging of reciprocal or interinsurance contracts between individuals, partnerships, and corporations. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• 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.
• Landscape architect: means a person licensed to practice landscape architecture in this State. See South Carolina Code 40-28-20
• Landscape architecture: means the performance of professional services, such as consultation, investigation, research, planning, design, preparation of drawings and specifications, and responsible inspection in connection with the development of land areas where, and to the extent that, the dominant purpose of the services is the preservation, enhancement, or determination of proper site design, natural land features, planting, naturalistic and aesthetic values, the settings and approaches to structures or other improvements, the setting of grades and determining drainage and providing for drainage structures, and the consideration and determining of environmental problems. See South Carolina Code 40-28-20
• 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}
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• License: means a license issued by the department under this chapter to hearing aid specialists. See South Carolina Code 40-25-20
• License: means a document issued by the state's director or his designee authorizing a person to act as an insurance producer for the lines of authority specified in the document. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Life insurance: means a contract of insurance upon the lives of human beings. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Manufactured home: means a structure, transportable in one or more sections which, in the traveling mode, is eight body feet or more in width or forty body feet or more in length or when erected on site is three hundred twenty or more square feet and which is built on a permanent chassis and designed to be used as a dwelling with or without a permanent foundation when connected to the required utilities and includes the plumbing, heating, air conditioning, and electrical systems contained in it. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Manufactured home contractor: means a person or entity, other than an employee of a licensed manufactured home retail dealer or a person licensed by the board or licensed by the South Carolina Contractor's Licensing Board to perform a particular function, who for valuable consideration engages in the installation, modification, alteration, or repair to the structural, mechanical, or electrical systems of a manufactured home. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Manufactured home installer: means a person or entity, other than an employee of a licensed manufactured home retail dealer or a person licensed by the board or licensed by the South Carolina Contractor's Licensing Board to perform a particular function, who for valuable consideration installs manufactured housing. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Manufactured home manufacturer: means a person, resident, or nonresident, who designs, constructs, or produces manufactured homes. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Manufactured home repairer: means a person or entity, other than an employee of a licensed manufactured home retail dealer or a person licensed by the board or licensed by the South Carolina Contractor's Licensing Board to perform a particular function, who for valuable consideration modifies, alters, or repairs the structural, mechanical, or electrical systems of a manufactured home. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Manufactured home retail dealer: means a person engaged in the business of buying, selling, offering for sale, or dealing in manufactured homes or offering for display manufactured homes for sale in South Carolina. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Manufactured home retail salesman: means a person who is an employee or otherwise acts as an agent or representative of a manufactured home retail dealer and holds himself out as promoting, offering for sale, or selling the manufactured home retail dealer's goods or services. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• New manufactured home: means a home that has not been previously titled and is still in the possession of the original retail dealer. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• 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.
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• 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 a corporation, agency, partnership, association, voluntary organization, individual, or another entity, organization, or aggregation of individuals. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Person: means an individual, natural person, firm, partnership, association, corporation, legal representative, or other recognized legal entity. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Policy: means a contract of insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Practice of specializing in hearing aids: means the measurement of human hearing by an audiometer and by other established means solely for fitting, making selections, adaptations, or sale of hearing aids. See South Carolina Code 40-25-20
• Premium: means payment given in consideration of a contract of insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
• Property insurance: means each insurance against direct or indirect loss of or damage to a property resulting from fire, smoke, weather disturbances, climatic conditions, earthquake, volcanic eruption, rising waters, insects, blight, animals, war damage, riot, civil commotion, destruction by order of civil authority to prevent spread of conflagration or for other reason, water damage, vandalism, glass breakage, explosion of a water system, collision, theft of automobiles, and personal effects in them (but no other forms of theft insurance), loss of or damage to domestic or wild animals, and any other perils to property which in the discretion of the director or his designee form proper subjects of property insurance, if not specified in items (1), (7), (11), (35), (40), (54), or (59) of this section. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Related field: means architecture, civil engineering, horticulture, or other field as determined appropriate by the board. See South Carolina Code 40-28-20
• Responsible charge: means direct control and personal supervision of landscape architecture. See South Carolina Code 40-28-20
• sale: include lease-purchase transactions. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Secretary: means the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• 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.
• Standard: means the appropriate standards adopted by the State of South Carolina and established by the Department of Housing and Urban Development pursuant to the Federal Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards. See South Carolina Code 40-29-20
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Temporary restraining order: Prohibits a person from an action that is likely to cause irreparable harm. This differs from an injunction in that it may be granted immediately, without notice to the opposing party, and without a hearing. It is intended to last only until a hearing can be held.
• Terminate: means the cancellation of the relationship between an insurance producer and the insurer or the termination of a producer's authority to transact insurance. See South Carolina Code 38-1-20
• Testify: Answer questions in court.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Tort: A civil wrong or breach of a duty to another person, as outlined by law. A very common tort is negligent operation of a motor vehicle that results in property damage and personal injury in an automobile accident.
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.