Terms Used In South Carolina Code > Title 56 > Chapter 3 > Article 1 - Short Title; Definitions

• 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.
• Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Child: means a person under the age of twenty-one. See South Carolina Code 63-7-2820
• Child: means a person under the age of eighteen. See South Carolina Code 63-7-20
• Childcare institution: means a private childcare institution, or a public childcare institution which accommodates no more than twenty-five children, that is licensed by the department. See South Carolina Code 63-7-20
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Court: means the family court. See South Carolina Code 63-7-20
• Department: means the Department of Social Services. See South Carolina Code 63-7-2820
• Department: means the Department of Social Services. See South Carolina Code 63-7-20
• 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.
• Fictive kin: means an individual who is not related by birth, adoption, or marriage to a child but has an emotionally significant relationship with the child or the child's family. See South Carolina Code 63-7-2820
• Guardian: means a person who legally has the care and management of a child. See South Carolina Code 63-1-40
• 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.
• 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}
• Legal custody: means the right to the physical custody, care, and control of a child; the right to determine where the child shall live; the right and duty to provide protection, food, clothing, shelter, ordinary medical care, education, supervision, and discipline for a child and in an emergency to authorize surgery or other extraordinary care. See South Carolina Code 63-7-20
• Legal Guardian: means a person appointed by the court through the judicial establishment of a legal guardianship to become the caretaker of a child. See South Carolina Code 63-7-20
• Legal Guardianship: means :
  
  (a) a judicially established relationship between a child and caretaker that is intended to be permanent and self-sustaining and transfers to the caretaker the following parental rights and responsibilities with respect to the child:
  
  (i) the duty to provide protection, support, food, clothing, shelter, supervision, education, and care;
  
  (ii) physical custody of the child;
  
  (iii) legal custody when family court has not awarded legal custody to another person, agency, or institution;
  
  (iv) the right to consent to marriage, enlistment in the armed forces, and medical and surgical treatment;
  
  (v) the duty and authority to represent the child in legal actions and to make decisions of substantial legal significance affecting the child;
  
  (vi) the right to determine the nature and extent of the child's contact with other persons; and
  
  (vii) the right to manage the child's income and assets. See South Carolina Code 63-7-20
• Mortgagor: The person who pledges property to a creditor as collateral for a loan and who receives the money.
• Parent: means biological parent, adoptive parents, step-parent, or person with legal custody. See South Carolina Code 63-1-40
• Physical custody: means the lawful, actual possession and control of a child. See South Carolina Code 63-7-20
• 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.
• Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Reasonable and prudent parent standard: means the standard of care characterized by careful and sensible parental decisions that maintain the health, safety, and best interest of a child while at the same time encouraging the growth and development of the child, that a caregiver shall use when determining whether to allow a child in foster care to participate in age or developmentally appropriate activities. See South Carolina Code 63-7-20
• Relative: means an individual within the first, second, or third degree to a parent or stepparent of a child who may be related through blood, marriage, or adoption or through the establishment of a fictive kin relationship. See South Carolina Code 63-7-2820
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Supplemental legal guardianship benefits: means monthly payments made by the department to a legal guardian pursuant to and after entering a written agreement with a relative or fictive kin to provide support for a child who without supplemental support may not achieve permanency through legal guardianship. See South Carolina Code 63-7-2820
• 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.
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.