Terms Used In Vermont Statutes > Title 16 > Chapter 53 - Contract, Compensation, and Sick Leave

• Adult education and literacy: means a program of public education adapted to the needs of persons who are beyond compulsory school age, and who have not completed high school education. See
• Agency fee: means a fee deducted by an employer from the salary or wages of an employee who is not a member of an employee organization, which is paid to the employee organization that is the exclusive bargaining agent for the bargaining unit of the employee. See
• Agency of Education: means the Secretary and staff necessary to carry out the functions of the Agency. See
• Annual meeting: when applied to towns shall mean the annual town meeting in March or an adjournment thereof. See
• 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.
• Appellate: About appeals; an appellate court has the power to review the judgement of another lower court or tribunal.
• 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
• Automated driving system: means the hardware and software that are collectively capable of performing the entire dynamic driving task on a sustained basis within its operational design domain, if any, including achieving a minimal risk condition, without any intervention or supervision by a conventional human driver, where applicable. See
• Automated vehicle: means a motor vehicle that is equipped with an automated driving system. See
• Bail: Security given for the release of a criminal defendant or witness from legal custody (usually in the form of money) to secure his/her appearance on the day and time appointed.
• Bequest: Property gifted by will.
• between: as used in this title in respect to a specified age of a student, shall mean the period of time commencing on the birthday of the child when he or she becomes the age first specified and ending on the day next preceding the birthday of the child when he or she becomes the age last specified. See
• Board: means the State Labor Relations Board established under 3 V. See
• Button: is a traffic control marking consisting of an object, either permanently attached to the pavement or temporarily placed, and projecting above the surface. See
• Chair: means the Chair of the Board. See
• Collective bargaining unit: means the employees of an employer being either all of the employees, the members of a craft, or the employees of a plant or subdivision thereof. See
• Commercial motor vehicle: means a motor vehicle designed or used to transport passengers or property that:

• Commissioner: shall mean in this title only the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles. See
• Commissioner: means the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles. See
• compensation: means payment in any form except reimbursement for mileage or the normal salary paid to a person otherwise employed by the school. See
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Continuance: Putting off of a hearing ot trial until a later time.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conventional human driver: means an individual who manually engages in-vehicle braking, accelerating, steering, and transmission gear selection input devices in order to operate a vehicle. See
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Conviction: means an unvacated final adjudication of guilt, or a final determination that a person has violated or failed to comply with the law in a court of original jurisdiction or an authorized administrative tribunal, an unvacated forfeiture of bail or collateral deposited to secure the person's appearance in court, the payment of a fine or court cost, or violation of a condition of release without bail, regardless of whether or not the penalty is rebated, suspended, or probated. See
• Conviction: means an unvacated adjudication of guilt, or a determination by a judge or hearing officer that a person has violated or failed to comply with the law in a court of original jurisdiction or an authorized administrative tribunal, an unvacated forfeiture of bail or collateral deposited to secure the person's appearance in court, the payment of a fine or court cost, or violation of a condition of release without bail, regardless of whether or not the penalty is rebated, suspended, or probated. See
• 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 any person who engages in whole or in part in the business of buying, selling, or exchanging new and unused vessels, snowmobiles, or all-terrain vehicles, or used vessels, snowmobiles, or all-terrain vehicles, or any combination, either outright or on conditional sale, bailment, lease, chattel mortgage, or otherwise, and who has an established place of business for sale, trade, and display of vessels, snowmobiles, or all-terrain vehicles. See
• 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.
• Devise: To gift property by will.
• Dismissal: The dropping of a case by the judge without further consideration or hearing. ^Source:
• Disqualification: means :

• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• Driver: means any individual who drives, operates, or is in physical control of a commercial motor vehicle on a public highway or who is required to hold a commercial driver's license. See
• Dynamic driving task: means all the real-time operational and tactical functions required to operate a vehicle in on-road traffic within its specific operational design domain, if any, excluding the strategic functions such as trip scheduling and selection of destinations and waypoints. See
• Employee: includes any employee, and is not limited to the employees of a particular employer unless this chapter explicitly states otherwise, and includes any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment, but does not include an individual;

• Employer: means any person, including the United States, a state, or a political subdivision of a state, who owns or leases a commercial motor vehicle or assigns an individual to drive a commercial motor vehicle. See
• Employer: means any person employing five or more employees and any person acting as an agent of an employer, employing five or more employees, directly or indirectly, but does not include:

• 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}
• 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.
• Executive session: A portion of the Senate's daily session in which it considers executive business.
• Fees: shall mean earnings due for official services, aside from salaries or per diem compensation. See
• following: when used by way of reference to a section of the law shall mean the next preceding or following section. See
• Foreign jurisdiction: means any jurisdiction other than a state of the United States. See
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• gender identity: means an individual's actual or perceived gender identity, or gender-related characteristics intrinsically related to an individual's gender or gender-identity, regardless of the individual's assigned sex at birth. See
• Germane: On the subject of the pending bill or other business; a strict standard of relevance.
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Grades: means the division of the educational work of the public schools into 13 school year units beginning with kindergarten and thereafter numbered from one to 12 beginning with the lowest. See
• Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
• Gross vehicle weight rating: means the value specified by the manufacturer or manufacturers as the maximum loaded weight of a single or a combination vehicle. See
• Hazardous materials: means any material that has been designated as hazardous under 49 U. See
• Identification number: means the numbers and letters, if any, on a vessel designated by the Commissioner for the purpose of identifying the vessel. See
• 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.
• Labor dispute: includes any controversy concerning terms, tenure, or conditions of employment, or concerning the association or representation of persons in negotiating, fixing, maintaining, changing, or seeking to arrange terms or conditions of employment, regardless of whether the disputants stand in the proximate relation of employer and employee. See
• Labor organization: means an organization of any kind or any agency or any employee representation committee or plan in which employees participate and that exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employees concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions of work. See
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Manufacturer: means an individual or company that designs, produces, or constructs vehicles or equipment. See
• Medical examiner: means :

• Minimal risk condition: means a condition in which an automated vehicle operating without a human driver, upon experiencing a failure of its automated driving system that renders the automated vehicle unable to perform the dynamic driving task, achieves a reasonably safe state that may include bringing the automated vehicle to a complete stop. See
• Mobile telephone: means a mobile communication device that falls under or uses any commercial mobile radio service, as defined under 47 C. See
• Month: means 30 days and "year" means 365 days. See
• Motor vehicle: includes all vehicles propelled or drawn by power other than muscular power, except farm tractors, vehicles running only upon stationary rails or tracks, motorized highway building equipment, road making appliances, snowmobiles, tracked vehicles, motor-assisted bicycles, electric bicycles, or electric personal assistive mobility devices. See
• Municipality: means a town, city, or incorporated village only and shall not include school districts, incorporated school or fire districts, or any other governmental incorporated units. See
• New District: means a district created by the realignment or merger of two or more current districts into a new supervisory district, union school district, or any other form of merged or realigned district authorized by law, including by chapter 11, subchapter 1, of this title, regardless of whether one or more of the districts creating the New District (a Realigning District) is a town school district, a city school district, an incorporated school district, a union school district, a unified union school district, or a supervisory district. See
• New SU: means a supervisory union created from the merger or realignment of two or more current supervisory unions or of all or some of the districts in one or more current supervisory unions (a Realigning SU). See
• Nolo contendere: No contest-has the same effect as a plea of guilty, as far as the criminal sentence is concerned, but may not be considered as an admission of guilt for any other purpose.
• Nonresident: shall include any person who does not come under the definition of a resident. See
• 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.
• Operational design domain: means a description of the specific domain or domains in which an automated driving system is designed to properly operate, including types of roadways, ranges of speed, weather, time of day, and environmental conditions. See
• Operator: shall include all persons 18 years of age or over properly licensed to operate motor vehicles. See
• Operator: means an individual employed by or under contract with an automated vehicle tester who has successfully completed the tester's training on safe driving and the capabilities and limitations of the automated vehicle and automated driving system, can take immediate manual or remote control of the automated vehicle being tested, is 21 years of age or older, and holds an operator's license for the class of vehicle being tested. See
• Out-of-service order: means a declaration by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration or an authorized enforcement officer of a federal, state, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Canadian, Mexican, or local jurisdiction, that a driver, or a commercial motor vehicle, or a school bus, or a motor carrier operation, is out of service. See
• Outlays: Outlays are payments made (generally through the issuance of checks or disbursement of cash) to liquidate obligations. Outlays during a fiscal year may be for payment of obligations incurred in prior years or in the same year.
• Person: includes any natural person, corporation, association, co-partnership, company, firm, or other aggregation of individuals. See
• Person: includes one or more individuals, labor organizations, partnerships, associations, corporations, legal representatives, trustees, trustees in bankruptcy, or receivers. See
• Person: shall include any natural person, corporation, municipality, the State of Vermont or any department, agency, or subdivision of the State, and any partnership, unincorporated association, or other legal entity. See
• Personal estate: shall include all property other than real estate. See
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Plea: In a criminal case, the defendant's statement pleading "guilty" or "not guilty" in answer to the charges, a declaration made in open court.
• 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.
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Privilege to operate: includes the privilege of a nonresident to operate a motor vehicle within the State and includes the privilege of a resident to obtain a license. See
• Public highway: means a State or municipal highway as defined in 19 V. See
• Public library: means any library established and maintained by a municipality or by a private association, corporation, or group to provide basic library services free of charge to all residents of a municipality or a community and which receives its annual financial support in whole or in part from public funds. See
• Public school: means an elementary school or secondary school operated by a school district. See
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Representatives: includes any individual or labor organization. See
• Resident: as used in this title only, means any person living in the State who intends to make the State his or her principal place of domicile either permanently or for an indefinite number of years. See
• Salvage dealer: means any person who, in a single year, purchases or in any manner acquires at a minimum three vessels, snowmobiles, or all-terrain vehicles as salvage or who scraps, dismantles, or destroys at a minimum three vessels, snowmobiles, or all-terrain vehicles in a single year. See
• School board: means the board of school directors elected to manage the schools of a school district, the prudential committee of an incorporated school district, the supervisory union board of directors, and the supervisors of unorganized towns and gores. See
• School bus: means any motor vehicle used to transport children to or from school or in connection with school activities, except:

• School district: means town school districts, union school districts, interstate school districts, city school districts, unified union districts, and incorporated school districts, each of which is governed by a publicly elected board. See
• School year: means the year beginning July 1 and ending the next June 30. See
• seal: shall include an impression of the official seal made upon paper alone or by means of a wafer or wax affixed thereto. See
• Secretary: means the Secretary of Education. See
• Serious traffic violation: means a conviction when operating a commercial motor vehicle or, if applicable, when operating a noncommercial motor vehicle when the conviction results in the revocation, cancellation, or suspension of the operator's license or operating privilege, of:

• sexual orientation: means female or male homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality. See
• Snowmobile: means a self-propelled vehicle intended for off-road travel primarily on snow, having a curb weight of not more than 453. See
• State: means a state, territory, or possession of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Republic of Mexico, and any Canadian province. See
• State: when applied to the different parts of the United States may apply to the District of Columbia and any territory and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. See
• State Board: means the State Board of Education established by chapter 3 of this title. See
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Superintendent: means the chief executive officer of a supervisory union and each school board within it. See
• Supervisory district: means a supervisory union that consists of only one school district, which may be a unified union district. See
• Supervisory union: means an administrative, planning, and educational service unit created by the State Board under section 261 of this title, that consists of two or more school districts; if the context clearly allows, the term also means a supervisory district. See
• System: shall mean the Vermont Municipal Employees' Retirement System created pursuant to 24 Vt. See
• Tank vehicle: means any commercial motor vehicle that is designed to transport any liquid or gaseous materials within a tank or tanks having an individual rated capacity of more than 119 gallons and an aggregate rated capacity of 1,000 gallons or more that is either permanently or temporarily attached to the vehicle or the chassis. See
• tester: means an individual, company, public agency, or other organization that is testing automated vehicles on public highways in this State pursuant to this chapter including an automated vehicle manufacturer, municipal or State agency, institution of higher education, fleet service provider, or automotive equipment or technology provider. See
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Texting: includes short message service, e-mailing, instant messaging, a command or request to access a World Wide Web page, pressing more than a single button to initiate or terminate a voice communication using a mobile telephone, or engaging in any other form of electronic text retrieval or entry, for present or future communication. See
• Town: shall include city and wards or precincts therein; "selectboard members" and "board of civil authority" shall extend to and include the mayor and aldermen of cities; "trustees" shall extend to and include bailiffs of incorporated villages; and the laws applicable to the inhabitants and officers of towns shall be applicable to the inhabitants and similar officers of all municipal corporations. See
• Trailer: is a vehicle without motive power designed to be drawn by a motor vehicle, and so constructed that no part of its weight rests upon the towing vehicle excepting, however, road making appliances and transportation dollies, and "semi-trailer" is a vehicle without motive power, designed to be 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 the towing vehicle, excepting, however, pole dinkeys, transportation dollies, and road making appliances. See
• 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.
• Transitional Board: means the board created prior to the first day of a New District's or a New SU's existence in order to transition to the new structure by negotiating and entering into contracts, preparing an initial proposed budget, adopting policies, and otherwise planning for implementation of the New District or New SU, and includes the board of an Absorbing District to which members from the other Realigning SU or SUs have been added in order to perform transitional responsibilities. See
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• United States: means the 50 states and the District of Columbia. See
• Vessel: means every description of watercraft capable of being used as a means of transportation on water that is equipped with machinery capable of propelling the watercraft, whether or not such machinery is the principal source of propulsion, but shall not include a watercraft that has a valid marine document issued by U. See
• Village: shall mean an incorporated village. See