Glossary of Terms

Glossary of Terms

WFPSO Civil Division's responsibilities are closely tied to civil court procedures. Therefore we've provided the following glossary of terms to assist you in some of these terms.

• Affidavit - A written or printed declaration or statement of facts, made voluntarily, and confirmed by the oath or affirmation of the party making it, taken before a person having authority to administer such oath or affirmation.

• Attorney of Record - Attorney whose name must appear somewhere in permanent records or files of case, or on the pleadings or some instrument filed in the case, or on appearance docket.

• Bond - A certificate or evidence of a debt on which the issuing company or governmental body promises to pay the bondholders a specified amount of interest for a specified length of time, and to repay the loan on the expiration date.

• Certified Copy - A copy of a document or record, signed and certified as a true copy by the officer to whose custody the original is entrusted.

• Court order - Direction of a court or judge made or entered in writing, and not included in a judgment, which determines some point or directs some step in the proceedings.

• Defendant - The person defending or denying; the party against whom relief or recovery is sought in an action or suit or the accused in a criminal case.

• Distress Writ - A writ that enables a common-law right of landlord, now regulated by statute, to seize a tenant's goods and chattels in a nonjudicial proceeding to satisfy an arrears of rent.

• Docket - To abstract and enter in a book. To make a brief entry of any proceeding in a court of justice in the docket. A minute, abstract, or brief entry; or the book containing such entries. A formal record, entered in brief, of the proceedings in a court of justice.