Terms Used In Tennessee Code > Title 29 > Chapter 20 - Governmental Tort Liability

• Adult: means an individual who is at least eighteen (18) years of age. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• 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.
• Agent: means an individual:
  (A) Authorized to make healthcare decisions on the principal's behalf by a power of attorney for healthcare or an advance directive. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Agriculture: means :
  (i) The land, buildings and machinery used in the commercial production of farm products and nursery stock. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• alternative delivery contracts: means :
  (1) Design-build contracts, as defined in §. See Tennessee Code 54-1-601
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Anatomical gift: means a donation of all or part of a human body to take effect after the donor's death for the purpose of transplantation, therapy, research, or education. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Ancillary agreements: means contracts or agreements facilitating the issuance and sale of bonds, including contracts or agreements providing for liquidity and credit enhancement and reimbursement agreements relating to the contracts or agreements providing for liquidity and credit enhancement. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• 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.
• Appointing authority: means a commissioner, department, officer or agency having power to make appointments to, and separations from, positions in state service. See Tennessee Code 8-30-103
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• 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
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Authorized contingency: means the contingency prepared and submitted by the CM/GC as part of the GMP, which is designed to cover costs that may result from incomplete design, unforeseen and unpredictable conditions, or uncertainties within the defined project scope which a prudent CM/GC would not have reasonably detected or anticipated during the discharge of CM/GC's pre-construction duties. See Tennessee Code 54-1-502
• Availability payments: means payments by a public entity to a private entity in connection with the development, maintenance, or operation of a user fee facility pursuant to a franchise agreement, concession agreement, or a combination of those agreements. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• 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.
• Betterment: means any upgrading of the facility being relocated that is not attributable to the highway construction and is made solely for the benefit of, and at the election of, the utility. See Tennessee Code 54-5-802
• board: means the board established in this chapter. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• Bonds: means bonds, notes, renewal notes, refunding bonds, interim certificates, certificates of indebtedness, debentures, warrants, commercial paper, or other obligations or other evidence of indebtedness or evidence of borrowed money issued or entered into by or on behalf of the department to finance user fee facility projects. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• Claim: means any claim brought against a governmental entity or its employee as permitted by this chapter. See Tennessee Code 29-20-102
• Code: includes the Tennessee Code and all amendments and revisions to the code and all additions and supplements to the code. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Collector: includes any person entrusted with the collection of public revenue. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Commissioner: means the commissioner of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• Commissioner: means the commissioner of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-5-103
• Commissioner: refers to the commissioner of human resources appointed under §. See Tennessee Code 8-30-103
• Commissioner: means the commissioner of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-5-103
• Commissioner: means the commissioner of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-1-502
• Commissioner: means the commissioner of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-4-502
• Commissioner: means the commissioner of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-5-802
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Concession agreement: means an agreement between a public entity and a private entity, or a consortium of private entities, under which the private entity or consortium accepts responsibility for the design, construction, financing, operation, or maintenance of a user fee facility for a period of years, collects revenues from the user fee facility for that period, and accepts the risk of revenues being sufficient to support the private entity's or consortium's capital, operations, and maintenance costs for the user fee facility. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• connector: means a roadway, or segment of a roadway, that will provide, or facilitate, appropriate ingress and egress, between an interstate highway or fully controlled access highway facility and a roadway that is of important benefit to a populous locality. See Tennessee Code 54-5-502
• Continuance: Putting off of a hearing ot trial until a later time.
• 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.
• Cost of relocation: means the entire amount paid by or on behalf of the utility properly attributable to the relocation after deducting from that amount any betterment of the new facility and any salvage value derived from the old facility. See Tennessee Code 54-5-802
• County mayor: means and includes "county executive" unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Decedent: includes a stillborn infant and, subject to restrictions imposed by law other than this part, a fetus. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Department: means the department of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• Department: means the department of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-5-103
• Department: means the department of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-5-103
• Department: means the department of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-1-502
• Department: means the department of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-4-502
• Department: means the department of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-5-402
• Department: means the department of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-5-502
• Department: means the department of transportation. See Tennessee Code 54-5-802
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Design-builder: means a business firm or joint venture that is able to provide both design and construction services for a transportation project, including, but not limited to, design, right-of-way acquisition, or utility relocation, as well as construction of the project. See Tennessee Code 54-1-502
• development: means a portion of the process of bringing a user fee facility project to completion, including, but not limited to, planning, feasibility analysis, environmental evaluation, preliminary engineering, design, acquisition of rights-of-way, relocation of utilities, permitting, environmental mitigation, contracting, funding, and construction. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• disabled: means the inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than twelve (12) months. See Tennessee Code 8-34-101
• Dismissal: The dropping of a case by the judge without further consideration or hearing. ^Source:
• Document of gift: includes a statement or symbol on a driver license, identification card, or donor registry. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Employee: means and includes any official (whether elected or appointed), officer, employee or servant, or any member of any board, agency, or commission (whether compensated or not), or any officer, employee or servant thereof, of a governmental entity, including the sheriff and the sheriff's employees and, further including regular members of voluntary or auxiliary firefighting, police, or emergency assistance organizations. See Tennessee Code 29-20-102
• 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.
• Eye bank: means a person that is licensed, accredited, or regulated under federal or state law to engage in the recovery, screening, testing, processing, storage, or distribution of human eyes or portions of human eyes. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Facility: means a highway, bridge, tunnel, parking lot or garage, or other paved surface or structure that is designed to carry or contain land transportation vehicles, or another transportation-related facility. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• Fair market value: The price at which an asset would change hands in a transaction between a willing, informed buyer and a willing, informed seller.
• 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.
• Franchise agreement: means an agreement between a public entity and a private entity, or a consortium of private entities, under which the private entity or consortium accepts responsibility for the design, construction, operation, or maintenance of a user fee facility for a period of years in exchange for payment from the public entity, which may include, but is not limited to, periodic availability payments from the public entity. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• fund: means each separate fund established in this chapter, or all such funds, as the context may require, and includes accounts and subaccounts in the fund or funds. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• GMP: means the total dollar amount within which the CM/GC commits to complete construction of the project, or the PDB commits to complete the final design and construction of the project, including the CM/GC's or PDB's direct costs, overhead, and profit, plus any authorized contingency. See Tennessee Code 54-1-502
• Governmental entity: means any political subdivision of the state of Tennessee including, but not limited to, any municipality, metropolitan government, county, utility district, school district, nonprofit volunteer fire department receiving funds appropriated by a county legislative body or a legislative body of a municipality, human resource agency, community action agency or nonprofit corporation that administers the Head Start or Community Service Block Grant programs, public building authority, and development district created and existing pursuant to the constitution and laws of Tennessee, or any instrumentality of government created by any one (1) or more of the named local governmental entities or by an act of the general assembly. See Tennessee Code 29-20-102
• 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.
• Guardian: means a person appointed by a court to make decisions regarding the support, care, education, health, or welfare of an individual. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Hedging agreements: means interest rate swap or exchange agreements, agreements establishing interest rate floors or ceilings, or both, and other interest rate hedging agreements relating to bonds. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• High occupancy user fee lane: means a high occupancy vehicle lane that may be used by an operator of a vehicle carrying fewer than the number of persons specified for the high occupancy vehicle lane if the operator pays a user fee. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• Highway: includes public bridges and may be held equivalent to the words "county way" "county road" or "state road". See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Hospital: means a facility licensed as a hospital under the law of any state or a facility operated as a hospital by the United States, a state, or a subdivision of a state. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• 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}
• industrial: means facilities for the manufacture of goods or for the production or processing of commodities. See Tennessee Code 54-5-402
• Industrial highway: means any extension of, or connection with the highway system, including state and federal highways, rural roads, and municipal streets, constructed under this part. See Tennessee Code 54-5-402
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• Injury: means death, injury to a person, damage to or loss of property or any other injury that one may suffer to one's person, or estate, that would be actionable if inflicted by a private person or such person's agent. See Tennessee Code 29-20-102
• Interest rate: The amount paid by a borrower to a lender in exchange for the use of the lender's money for a certain period of time. Interest is paid on loans or on debt instruments, such as notes or bonds, either at regular intervals or as part of a lump sum payment when the issue matures. ^{Source: OCC}
• 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.
• Know: means to have actual knowledge. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Lands: includes lands, tenements and hereditaments, and all rights thereto and interests therein, equitable as well as legal. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Lawsuit: A legal action started by a plaintiff against a defendant based on a complaint that the defendant failed to perform a legal duty, resulting in harm to the plaintiff.
• 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.
• 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.
• Local agency: means any county or incorporated city or town in this state. See Tennessee Code 54-5-502
• Local government: means any county, incorporated city or town, and metropolitan form of government, or any of them. See Tennessee Code 54-4-502
• Major thoroughfare system: means the system of arterial and collector streets serving an urban-like developed area. See Tennessee Code 54-5-502
• Managed lane: means a highway lane where operational strategies are proactively implemented and operated in response to changing traffic conditions, including, but not limited to, a user fee lane, high occupancy vehicle lane, or high occupancy user fee lane. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• Member: means any person included in the membership of the retirement system, as provided in chapter 35, part 1 of this title. See Tennessee Code 8-34-101
• Month: means a calendar month. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Municipal street aid fund: means the funds provided for municipalities by §. See Tennessee Code 54-4-201
• Municipality: means any incorporated city or incorporated town charged with the duty of constructing and maintaining streets within its corporate boundaries. See Tennessee Code 54-4-201
• Municipality: means any county, incorporated city or town, or any public port authority or transportation authority in this state. See Tennessee Code 54-5-402
• 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.
• Official station: means the town or city where the employee performs a majority of the employee's duties. See Tennessee Code 8-30-103
• Open road user fee system: means a system for the collection of user fees via electronic means without the use of physical payment booths. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• operation: means activity associated with the management, operation, and maintenance of a completed user fee project, including, but not limited to, collecting user fees. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• Organ procurement organization: means a person designated by the secretary of the United States department of health and human services as an organ procurement organization. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Part: means an organ, an eye, or tissue of a human being. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• PDB: means a design-builder that is able to provide pre-construction services during the preliminary design and development phase of a transportation project, including, but not limited to, constructability review, scheduling, pricing, and phasing, and is able to complete the final design and construct the project if the department and the design-builder agree to a guaranteed maximum price. See Tennessee Code 54-1-502
• Person: means an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, public corporation, government or governmental subdivision, agency, or instrumentality, or any other legal or commercial entity. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Person: includes a corporation, firm, company or association. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Personal property: includes money, goods, chattels, things in action, and evidences of debt. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Physician: means an individual authorized to practice medicine or osteopathy under the law of any state. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Preferred service: means all offices and positions of employment in the state service that have been placed under the preferred service provisions of this chapter. See Tennessee Code 8-30-103
• Probable cause: A reasonable ground for belief that the offender violated a specific law.
• Procurement organization: means an eye bank, organ procurement organization, or tissue bank. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Project: includes all of the phases of work required to produce a completed connector, including location, design, acquisition of rights-of-way, relocation of utility facilities, the cost of which is not the legal obligation of the owners thereof, and the construction or reconstruction of the connector. See Tennessee Code 54-5-502
• Property: includes both personal and real property. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Public highway: means any highway included on the state highway system or interstate system and any highway, road or street that is owned, maintained, or owned and maintained by a county or municipality, including the right-of-way for the highway, road or street. See Tennessee Code 54-5-802
• Reasonably available: means able to be contacted by a procurement organization without undue effort and willing and able to act in a timely manner consistent with existing medical criteria necessary for the making of an anatomical gift. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Recipient: means an individual into whose body a decedent's part has been or is intended to be transplanted. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Record: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in perceivable form. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Record: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in a perceivable form. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Refusal: means a record under §. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Relocation: means the adjustment of a utility facility as the commissioner determines is necessary or appropriate in connection with the construction or reconstruction of a public highway. See Tennessee Code 54-5-802
• Reporter: Makes a record of court proceedings and prepares a transcript, and also publishes the court's opinions or decisions (in the courts of appeals).
• Representative: when applied to those who represent a decedent, includes executors and administrators, unless the context implies heirs and distributees. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Road: includes public bridges and may be held equivalent to the words "county way" "county road" or "state road". See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Salvage value: means the amount received from the sale of utility property that has been removed or, if retained for reuse, the amount at which the recovered material is charged to the utility's accounts. See Tennessee Code 54-5-802
• Service: means service as a general employee, a teacher, a state police officer, a wildlife officer, a firefighter, a police officer, a state judge, a county judge, an attorney general, a commissioner or a county official which is paid for by an employer, and also includes service for which a former member of the general assembly is entitled to under former §. See Tennessee Code 8-34-101
• Service of process: The service of writs or summonses to the appropriate party.
• 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.
• signed: includes a mark, the name being written near the mark and witnessed, or any other symbol or methodology executed or adopted by a party with intention to authenticate a writing or record, regardless of being witnessed. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• State: means the state of Tennessee. See Tennessee Code 8-34-101
• State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• State funding board: means the state funding board established in §. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Street: includes streets, highways, avenues, boulevards, publicly owned rights-of-way, bridges, tunnels, public parking areas or other public ways dedicated to public use and maintained for general public travel lying within a municipality's corporate boundaries. See Tennessee Code 54-4-201
• Street improvements: means construction, reconstruction, improvement and maintenance of streets, including paving, repaving, grading and drainage, repairs, cleaning, acquisition and maintenance of rights-of-way, extension and widening of existing streets, elimination of railroad grade crossings, acquisition or lease or lease/purchase of trucks or other equipment necessary in the construction and maintenance of streets, including the purchase, construction or leasing of facilities to store the equipment, street lighting, signage and other traffic control devices, and administrative and other necessary expenses, including labor and employee benefits, in connection with the street improvements. See Tennessee Code 54-4-201
• Technician: includes an enucleator. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Tissue: means a portion of the human body other than an organ or an eye. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• Tissue bank: means a person that is licensed, accredited, or regulated under federal or state law to engage in the recovery, screening, testing, processing, storage, or distribution of tissue. See Tennessee Code 68-30-102
• 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.
• 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.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• United States: includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• User fee: means a fee or charge for the use of a user fee facility. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• User fee facility: means a facility where the development or operation of the facility is wholly or partially funded with user fees. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• User fee facility project: means a capital project involving the development or operation of a user fee facility. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• User fee lane: means a highway lane that may be used by an operator of a vehicle if the operator pays a user fee. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• User fee revenue: means revenues or moneys received from the collection of user fees. See Tennessee Code 54-3-103
• User fees: Fees charged to users of goods or services provided by the government. In levying or authorizing these fees, the legislature determines whether the revenue should go into the treasury or should be available to the agency providing the goods or services.
• Utility: means a privately, publicly or cooperatively owned line, facility or system used, available for use or formerly used to transmit or distribute communications, electricity, gas, liquids, steam, sewerage, or other materials to the public. See Tennessee Code 54-5-802
• Verdict: The decision of a petit jury or a judge.
• wildflowers: means plants or grasses that are native to the southeastern United States, and Tennessee in particular, when available. See Tennessee Code 54-5-1203
• Writ of certiorari: An order issued by the Supreme Court directing the lower court to transmit records for a case for which it will hear on appeal.
• written: includes printing, typewriting, engraving, lithography, and any other mode of representing words and letters. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Year: means a calendar year, unless otherwise expressed. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105