Terms Used In Tennessee Code > Title 55 > Chapter 3 - Certificates of Title

• 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.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Automotive dismantler and recycler: means a person who engages in the business of acquiring salvage vehicles for the purpose of recovering parts for resale. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• Bicycle: means every device propelled by human power upon which any person may ride, having two (2) tandem wheels, either of which is more than twenty inches (20") in diameter. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Civil action: means all suits or claims of a civil nature in a court of record, whether cognizable as cases at law or in equity or admiralty. See Tennessee Code 29-34-303
• 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
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• 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.
• Dealer: means every person engaged in the business of buying, selling or exchanging vehicles of a type required to be registered and who has an established place of business for that purpose in this state. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Department: means the department of revenue. See Tennessee Code 55-1-111
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Driver: means :
  (A) For purposes of a conventionally operated vehicle, every person who drives or is in actual physical control of a vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• 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.
• 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.
• Fee simple: Absolute title to property with no limitations or restrictions regarding the person who may inherit it.
• 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.
• Flood vehicle: means any passenger motor vehicle which has sustained substantial water damage as determined by departmental rules and regulations. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• Foreign vehicle: means every vehicle of a type required to be registered brought into this state from another state, territory or country other than in the ordinary course of business by or through a manufacturer or dealer and not registered in this state. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Highway: means the entire width between the boundary lines of every way when any part thereto is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Implement of husbandry: means every vehicle that is designed for agricultural purposes and exclusively used by the owner thereof in the conduct of the owner's agricultural operations. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• 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.
• Lands: includes lands, tenements and hereditaments, and all rights thereto and interests therein, equitable as well as legal. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• 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.
• Manufacturer: means every person engaged in the business of constructing or assembling vehicles of a type required to be registered at an established place of business in this state. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Methamphetamine vehicle: means any motor vehicle subject to registration and certificate of title provisions that has been impounded by a law enforcement agency based on a charge of manufacture of methamphetamine on or within the vehicle and determined to be contaminated pursuant to the standards developed pursuant to title 68, chapter 212, part 5, and for which the department has received a notice of motor vehicle impoundment for manufacture of methamphetamine pursuant to §. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• Mixed dust: means a mixture of dusts composed of silica and one (1) or more other fibrogenic dusts capable of inducing pulmonary fibrosis if inhaled in sufficient quantity. See Tennessee Code 29-34-303
• Mixed dust disease claim: includes a claim made by or on behalf of any person who has been exposed to mixed dust, or any representative, spouse, parent, child, or other relative of that person, for injury, including mental or emotional injury, death, or loss to the person, risk of disease or other injury, costs of medical monitoring or surveillance, or any other effects on the person's health that are caused by the person's exposure to mixed dust. See Tennessee Code 29-34-303
• Month: means a calendar month. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
• Nonrepairable vehicle: includes , but is not limited to, any passenger motor vehicle which has sustained salt water damage as a result of salt water entering the passenger compartment. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• Nonrepairable vehicle certificate: means a passenger motor vehicle ownership document issued by the state to the owner of a nonrepairable vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• 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.
• off-highway motor vehicle: means any vehicle designed primarily to be operated off public highways, including any Class I off-highway vehicle, Class II off-highway vehicle, all-terrain vehicle, any motorcycle commonly referred to as a dirt bike, or any snowmobile or other vehicle designed to travel exclusively over snow or ice. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Operator: means :
  (A) For purposes of a conventionally operated vehicle, every person, other than a chauffeur, who drives or is in actual physical control of a motor vehicle upon a highway or who is exercising control over or steering a vehicle being towed by a motor vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Owner: means a person who holds the legal title of a vehicle, or in the event a vehicle is the subject of an agreement for the conditional sale or lease thereof, with the right of purchase upon performance of the conditions stated in the agreement and with an immediate right of possession vested in the conditional vendee or lessee, or in the event a mortgagor of a vehicle is entitled to possession, then the conditional vendee or lessee or mortgagor shall be deemed the owner for the purpose of this chapter and chapter 10, parts 1-5 of this title. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Passenger motor vehicle: means any vehicle driven or drawn by mechanical power manufactured primarily for use on the public streets, roads and highways that is ten (10) model years old or less, including a multipurpose passenger vehicle or light duty truck when that vehicle or truck is rated at not more than nine thousand pounds (9,000 lbs. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• Person: means a natural person, firm, copartnership, association, corporation, or an engaged ADS. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Physical impairment: means a condition of an exposed person as defined in §. See Tennessee Code 29-34-303
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Pole trailer: means every vehicle without motive power designed to be driven by another vehicle and attached to the towing vehicle by means of a reach or pole, or by being boomed or otherwise secured to the towing vehicle, and ordinarily used for transporting long or irregularly shaped loads, such as poles, pipes or structural members capable, generally, of sustaining themselves as beams between the supporting connections. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• 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}
• Premises owner: means a person who owns, in whole or in part, leases, rents, maintains, or controls privately owned lands, ways, or waters, or any buildings and structures on those lands, ways, or waters, and all privately owned and state-owned lands, ways, or waters leased to a private person, firm, or organization, including any buildings and structures on those lands, ways, or waters. See Tennessee Code 29-34-303
• Property: includes both personal and real property. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• real property: include lands, tenements and hereditaments, and all rights thereto and interests therein, equitable as well as legal. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Rebuilt title: means the passenger motor vehicle ownership document issued by the state to the owner of a rebuilt vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• Rebuilt vehicle: means any passenger motor vehicle which was previously issued a salvage title. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• 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
• 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
• Restitution: The court-ordered payment of money by the defendant to the victim for damages caused by the criminal action.
• Salvage pool operator: means a person who engages in the business of selling salvage vehicles at auction, including wholesale auction, or otherwise. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• Salvage title: means a passenger motor vehicle ownership document issued by the state to the owner of a salvage vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• Salvage vehicle: means any passenger motor vehicle which has been wrecked, destroyed, or damaged to the extent that the total estimated or actual cost of parts and labor to rebuild or reconstruct the passenger motor vehicle to its pre-accident condition and for legal operation on the roads or highways exceeds seventy-five percent (75%) of the retail value of the passenger motor vehicle, as set forth in a current edition of any nationally recognized compilation (to include automated databases) of retail values. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• Scrap metal processor: means any person who is engaged in the business of buying nonrepairable vehicles, automotive parts, or other metallic material by weight to process this material into scrap metal for remelting purposes. See Tennessee Code 55-3-201
• Semitrailer: means every vehicle with or without motive power, other than a pole trailer, designed for carrying persons or property and for being drawn by a motor vehicle and so constructed that some part of its weight and that of its load rests upon or is carried by another vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• 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
• Silica: means a respirable crystalline form of the naturally occurring mineral form of silicon dioxide, including, but not limited to, quartz, cristobalite, and tridymite. See Tennessee Code 29-34-303
• Silica claim: includes a claim made by or on behalf of any person who has been exposed to silica, or any representative, spouse, parent, child, or other relative of that person, for injury, including mental or emotional injury, death, or loss to the person, risk of disease or other injury, costs of medical monitoring or surveillance, or any other effects on the person's health that are caused by the person's exposure to silica. See Tennessee Code 29-34-303
• Special mobile equipment: means every vehicle not designed or used primarily for the transportation of persons or property and incidentally operated or moved over the highways, including farm tractors, road construction or maintenance machinery, ditch-digging apparatus, well-boring apparatus and concrete mixers. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• 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
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Street: means the entire width between boundary lines of every way when any part thereof is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Substantial contributing factor: means both of the following:
  (i) Exposure to silica or mixed dust is the predominate cause of the physical impairment alleged in the silica claim or mixed dust disease claim, whichever is applicable. See Tennessee Code 29-34-303
• 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.
• Trailer: means every vehicle with or without motive power, other than a pole trailer, designed for carrying persons or property and for being drawn by a motor vehicle and so constructed that no part of its weight rests upon the towing vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Truck: means every motor vehicle designed, used or maintained primarily for the transportation of property. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• United States: includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Vehicle: means every device in, upon or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, excepting devices used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.
• 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