Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 8.01 > Chapter 25 - Extraordinary Writs

• Agreement: means the bargain of the parties in fact, as found in their language or inferred from other circumstances and from rules, regulations, and procedures given the effect of agreements under laws otherwise applicable to a particular transaction. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• 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.
• Appellate: About appeals; an appellate court has the power to review the judgement of another lower court or tribunal.
• Attorney-in-fact: A person who, acting as an agent, is given written authorization by another person to transact business for him (her) out of court.
• Automated transaction: means a transaction conducted or performed, in whole or in part, by electronic means or electronic records, in which the acts or records of one or both parties are not reviewed by an individual in the ordinary course in forming a contract, performing under an existing contract, or fulfilling an obligation required by the transaction. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• 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.
• 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 Commonwealth Transportation Board. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• Charity: An agency, institution, or organization in existence and operating for the benefit of an indefinite number of persons and conducted for educational, religious, scientific, medical, or other beneficent purposes.
• City: has the meaning assigned to it in § 1-208. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• Commission: means the State Corporation Commission. See Virginia Code 6.2-100
• Commissioner: means the Commissioner of Financial Institutions. See Virginia Code 6.2-100
• Commissioner of Highways: means the individual who serves as the chief executive officer of the Department of Transportation. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• 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.
• Component governments: means the counties and cities composing a transportation district and the various departments, bureaus, and divisions of such counties and cities. See Virginia Code 33.2-1901
• Computer program: means a set of statements or instructions to be used directly or indirectly in an information processing system in order to bring about a certain result. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Construction: means building, altering, repairing, improving or demolishing any structure, building or highway, and any draining, dredging, excavation, grading or similar work upon real property. See Virginia Code 2.2-4301
• Contract: means the total legal obligation resulting from the parties' agreement as affected by this chapter and other applicable law. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• 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 Virginia Code 33.2-100
• District: means a transportation district authorized to be created by this chapter. See Virginia Code 33.2-1901
• district commission: means the governing body of a district. See Virginia Code 33.2-1901
• Electronic: means relating to technology having electrical, digital, magnetic, wireless, optical, electromagnetic, or similar capabilities. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Electronic agent: means a computer program or an electronic or other automated means used independently to initiate an action or respond to electronic records or performances in whole or in part, without review or action by an individual. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Electronic record: means a record created, generated, sent, communicated, received, or stored by electronic means. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Electronic signature: means an electronic sound, symbol, or process attached to or logically associated with a record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Entity: means any corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or other legal or commercial entity. See Virginia Code 6.2-100
• Escrow: Money given to a third party to be held for payment until certain conditions are met.
• facilities: means all those matters and things utilized in rendering transportation service by means of rail, bus, water, or air and any other mode of travel, including tracks, rights-of-way, bridges, tunnels, subways, and rolling stock for rail, motor vehicle, marine, and air transportation; stations, terminals, and ports; areas for parking; buildings; structures; and all equipment, fixtures, and business activities reasonably required for the performance of transportation service, but does not include any such facilities owned by any person, company, association, or corporation the major part of whose transportation service extends beyond a transportation district created in this chapter. See Virginia Code 33.2-1901
• Fiduciary: includes a guardian, committee, trustee, executor, conservator, or personal representative. See Virginia Code 64.2-100
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Governing bodies: means the boards of supervisors of counties and councils of cities composing a transportation district. See Virginia Code 33.2-1901
• Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
• Habeas corpus: A writ that is usually used to bring a prisoner before the court to determine the legality of his imprisonment. It may also be used to bring a person in custody before the court to give testimony, or to be prosecuted.
• Highway: means the entire width between the boundary lines of every way or place open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel in the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• In forma pauperis: In the manner of a pauper. Permission given to a person to sue without payment of court fees on claim of indigence or poverty.
• Information: means data, text, images, sounds, codes, computer programs, software, databases, or the like. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Information processing system: means an electronic system for creating, generating, sending, receiving, storing, displaying, or processing information. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Inter vivos: Transfer of property from one living person to another living person.
• 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}
• Intestate: Dying without leaving a will.
• Joint tenancy: A form of property ownership in which two or more parties hold an undivided interest in the same property that was conveyed under the same instrument at the same time. A joint tenant can sell his (her) interest but not dispose of it by will. Upon the death of a joint tenant, his (her) undivided interest is distributed among the surviving joint tenants.
• Licensee: means an individual licensed under this chapter. See Virginia Code 6.2-1700
• Life estate: A property interest limited in duration to the life of the individual holding the interest (life tenant).
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Locality: has the meaning assigned to it in § 1-221. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• Maintenance: means (i) ordinary maintenance; (ii) maintenance replacement; (iii) operations that include traffic signal synchronization, incident management, and other intelligent transportation system functions; and (iv) any other categories of maintenance that may be designated by the Commissioner of Highways. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• mass transit: means passenger transportation by rubber-tired, rail, or other surface conveyance that provides shared ride services open to the general public on a regular and continuing basis. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• Metropolitan area: means a metropolitan statistical area as defined by the U. See Virginia Code 33.2-1901
• Mortgage loan: A loan made by a lender to a borrower for the financing of real property. ^{Source: OCC}
• Mortgage loan originator: means an individual who (i) takes an application for or offers or negotiates the terms of a residential mortgage loan in which the dwelling is or will be located in the Commonwealth or (ii) represents to the public, through advertising or other means of communicating or providing information, including the use of business cards, stationery, brochures, signs, rate lists, or other promotional items, that such individual can or will perform any of the activities described in clause (i). See Virginia Code 6.2-1700
• Nontraditional mortgage product: means any mortgage product other than a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. See Virginia Code 6.2-1700
• Notary: means notary public. See Virginia Code 1-226
• Person: means an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, public body, public corporation, or any other legal or commercial entity. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Person: means an individual, partnership, association, or corporation or any governmental agency or authority. See Virginia Code 33.2-1901
• Personal representative: includes the executor of a will or the administrator of the estate of a decedent, the administrator of such estate with the will annexed, the administrator of such estate unadministered by a former representative, whether there is a will or not, any person who is under the order of a circuit court to take into his possession the estate of a decedent for administration, and every other curator of a decedent's estate, for or against whom suits may be brought for causes of action that accrued to or against the decedent. See Virginia Code 1-234
• 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.
• 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}
• 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.
• Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
• Public body: means any legislative, executive or judicial body, agency, office, department, authority, post, commission, committee, institution, board or political subdivision created by law to exercise some sovereign power or to perform some governmental duty, and empowered by law to undertake the activities described in this chapter. See Virginia Code 2.2-4301
• Public corporation: means the Commonwealth of Virginia or any political subdivision thereof or any incorporated municipality therein or any public agency of the Commonwealth or of any political subdivision thereof or of any municipality therein. See Virginia Code 1-219.1
• Recess: A temporary interruption of the legislative business.
• 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 Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Registry: means a mortgage licensing system developed and maintained by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors and the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators for the licensing and registration of mortgage loan originators. See Virginia Code 6.2-1700
• Remainderman: One entitled to the remainder of an estate after a particular reserved right or interest, such as a life tenancy, has expired.
• Remand: When an appellate court sends a case back to a lower court for further proceedings.
• Right of survivorship: The ownership rights that result in the acquisition of title to property by reason of having survived other co-owners.
• Secretary: means the Secretary of Transportation. See Virginia Code 33.2-100
• Security procedure: means a procedure employed for the purpose of verifying that an electronic signature, record, or performance is that of a specific person or for detecting changes or errors in the information in an electronic record. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Services: means any work performed by an independent contractor wherein the service rendered does not consist primarily of acquisition of equipment or materials, or the rental of equipment, materials and supplies. See Virginia Code 2.2-4301
• Sheriff: shall include deputy sheriffs and such other persons designated in § Virginia Code 8.01-2
• State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. See Virginia Code 33.2-1901
• State: includes District of Columbia;

  (f) "Transit facilities" means all real and personal property located in the Zone, necessary or useful in rendering transit service between points within the Zone, by means of rail, bus, water or air and any other mode of travel, including, without limitation, tracks, rights-of-way, bridges, tunnels, subways, rolling stock for rail, motor vehicle, marine and air transportation, stations, terminals and ports, areas for parking and all equipment, fixtures, buildings and structures and services incidental to or required in connection with the performance of transit service;

  (g) "Transit services" means the transportation of persons and their packages and baggage by means of transit facilities between points within the Zone including the transportation of newspapers, express and mail between such points, and charter service which originates within the Zone but does not include taxicab service or individual-ticket-sales sightseeing operations;

  (h) "Transit Zone" or "Zone" means the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Zone created and described in Section 3 as well as any additional area that may be added pursuant to Section 83(a) of this Compact; and

  (i) "WMATC" means Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Commission. See Virginia Code 33.2-3100

• State: means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• such agency: means an agency authorized by, or arising from action of, the General Assembly to plan for or provide transportation facilities and service for a metropolitan area located wholly or in part in the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 33.2-1901
• sworn: means "affirm" or "affirmed. See Virginia Code 1-250
• Tenancy by the entirety: A type of joint tenancy between husband and wife that is recognized in some States. Neither party can sever the joint tenancy relationship; when a spouse dies, the survivor acquires full title to the property.
• Testator: A male person who leaves a will at death.
• Transaction: means an action or set of actions occurring between two or more persons relating to the conduct of business, commercial, or governmental affairs. See Virginia Code 59.1-480
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.
• Writ: A formal written command, issued from the court, requiring the performance of a specific act.