Glossary

Legal glossary

763 definitions · page 13 of 13.

Use Tax: A use tax is an ad valorem tax based on the use of a piece of property.
Useful Life: Useful life is an accounting legal term referring to the span of time that an asset can be expected to be useful and productive. Once determined, the useful life is the period over which the asset may be depreciated on the company's accounting books.
Usurpation: Usurpation is the wrongful and illegal taking over and assuming the authority over a position, office, or the right of another.
Usury: Usury is the crime of charging interest on a loan that is in excess of the maximum allowable interest rate under the law.
Uxoricide: Uxoricide is the crime of taking the life of one's own wife. Uxoricide is murder of the wife by a spouse.
Value Added Tax (VAT Tax): VAT is a means of taxing that is becoming more and more popular. A Value Added Tax is essentially a consumption tax levied on the value increment added to a product as it passes through each stage along its production process, including a tax at the time of…
Vehicle Rollover Cases: A product liability claim brought against automobile manufacturers based on a tendency for a particular model of motor vehicle to rollover under otherwise normal driving conditions or when making reasonable driving responses to foreseeable traffic conditions.
Venue: Venue refers to the physical location of the court.
Verdict: Verdict refers to the official finding made by the jury. This is the up or down conclusion.
Void: Void means null, or having no legal effect or force.
Voidable: Voidable refers to a contract that is not absolutely void but because of some defect may be voided on motion of one of the parties.
Warrant: A warrant in contract terms is to say a party warrants a relevant fact or situation regarding the contract's subject matter to be true. In criminal law matters, the term warrant refers to the order issued by a court authorizing the arrest of a person.
Warranty: A warranty is a guarantee made with regard to some attribute of a product or service. For example, a warranty deed guarantees the status of a land title.
Warranty of Fitness: A warranty of fitness is a guarantee implied by the manufacturer, retailer, and distributor of a product, that the product is fit for its intended purpose and foreseeable use.
Warranty of Merchantability: A warranty of merchantability is a guarantee implied by the manufacturer, retailer, and distributor of a product, that the product is fit for its intended purpose and foreseeable use and that it is also properly packaged and labeled.
Weighted Average: Weighted average is an accounting convention whereby the cost of goods sold and the cost of the ending inventory are determined by using the weighted average cost of all merchandise available over the entire period.
Whistleblower: A Whistleblower is really a slang term that is now generally accepted and which is used in practice to describe that person who alerts civil authorities of the wrongful acts being committed by his employer against the government. Whistleblowers are entitled…
Winding Up: Winding Up refers to the final settlement of corporate affairs before the corporation finally goes out of existence. Winding Up is not a bankruptcy procedure, per se.
Wire Transfer: Wire Transfer is a legal term that refers to the movement of money from account to account, or from person to person, by electronic means. The physical cash itself does not necessarily move at all, just the ownership of the money is transferred.
With Prejudice: With Prejudice means to conclude a cause of action such that it cannot be brought again. In most jurisdictions, a plaintiff may dismiss his civil case once without prejudice to the case being re-filed. The second dismissal of the case, in most jurisdictions…
Witness: A person with first hand information relevant to the essential facts of a case is a witness, based on the witnesses own personal knowledge. The witness may testify if otherwise qualified. Expert testimony may be introduced in some cases where the opinion of…
Witness Protection Program: This program offers protection to certain witnesses who may be in particular danger from the defendant if the witness takes the witness stand. The program is unusually active in organized crime prosecutions. New identities have been given to some witnesses.
Work For Hire: Under the work for hire rule, an employed artist who creates an item that can be copyrighted is not entitled to the copyright ahead of the employer unless the artist and employer have agreed otherwise.
Workers' Compensation: This is a model act adopted throughout the United States that offers scheduled benefits and compensation to certain injured workers who are injured on the job, regardless of whose fault the injury might have been. This model supplants the common law fellow…
Workflow Accounting: Workflow is an accounting legal term that refers to the examination of the way in which the specific work tasks of a company, or a company division, is done, such that an accounting value is deemed and ascribed to each step in the work process, or to each…
Working Capital: Working Capital is an accounting legal term that refers to the dollar amount, in value, used by a company in carrying on its business activities. This amount excludes the cost, or value, of equipment and buildings.
Write Off: A write off is the act of charging part or all of the value of an asset off to an expense or loss. The asset is thus written off, for accounting purposes.
X: An X has been used as a mark that can serve as a substitute for a person's signature, especially for the handicapped or illiterate. An X can also be used to mark on voting ballots, to indicate the voter's choice.
X Rated: This term refers to an identifying mark or label printed on material to alert the purchaser of adult content.
XYY Chromosome Defense: In some criminal cases, the defendant has argued that his criminal behavior was caused by a genetic abnormality. The specific abnormality is that the male defendant has an extra Y chromosome, which is thought to cause aggressiveness that cannot be…
Yea and Nay: At common law, a yea or nay was understood to be an unverified admission or denial as contained in some document or record.
Year and a Day: At common law, a year and a day was the period of time fixed for the claiming of rights. Failure to claim within that period could extinguish it. This is like today's statute of limitation.
Year and a Day Rule: At common law in criminal cases, it was understood that if death occurred more than one year and a day after the assault happened, no murder or unlawful killing charge could be brought based on the assault.
Year to Date: Year to date, or YTD, is an expression meant to measure an account from the beginning of the calendar year to the date in question. For example, your wages, year to date, is a useful number.
Yellow Dog Contract: A yellow dog contract is no longer a legal practice. Employers would in the past sometimes require new employees and current employees to sign an agreement that they would not join a union. The agreement was a condition of employment or continued employment…
Your Honor: Your Honor is a term of respect to which a judge is entitled.
Youthful Offender: A youthful offender is a juvenile that has been accused of or that has been convicted of some criminal behavior.
Zero Based Budgeting: Zero based budgeting is a budget keeping method used by a company that accounts for all expenditures in the year they are actually realized. Accounts and budgets are more or less justified on an annual basis.
Zero Coupon Bond: A zero coupon bond is a bond that pays no interest. Instead, the bond is sold as a discount and then is redeemable on maturity at the face value.
Zero Tolerance: A zero tolerance program is a claim by authorities that no, meaning zero, violations of a particular statute will be allowed. Enforcement without exception.
Zone of Danger: In personal injury law, or negligence law, a zone of danger is a reference to the area within which a plaintiff can make a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Imaginary or speculative connections to the area of actual danger, or zone of…
Zone of Privacy: In constitutional law, the zone of privacy, which is protected, is the theoretical limits of a person's reasonable expectation of privacy, implied in the express guarantees found in the Bill of Rights.
Zoning: Zoning refers to the separate divisions of a city wherein uses of real property are restricted according to a plan developed by the governing body by regulation. So there are residential zones, commercial zones, industrial zones, etc.