1.32.030 Definitions

As used in this Code, unless the context otherwise requires, the following terms shall have the meaning as indicated.

(a) "Abatement" means a reduction or decrease.

(b) "Administrator" means the person appointed by the Band's Trial Court to administer the estate of a decedent according to this Probate Code and may include the Executor named in the decedent's will, appointed at the request of an interested party, appointed by the Court, or the public Administrator.

(c) "Adoption" means the legal process pursuant to statute in which a child's legal rights and duties toward his or her natural parents are terminated and similar rights and duties toward his or her adoptive parents are substituted. To take into one's family the child of another and give him or her, the rights, privileges, and duties of a child and heir. An adopted person is the child of an adopting parent and of the natural parents for inheritance purposes only. The adoption of a child by the spouse of a natural parent has no effect on the relationship between the child and that natural parent. This legal definition of adoption does not include the customary adoption traditionally practiced by members of the Band.

(d) "Beneficiary" means any person nominated in a will to receive an interest in property other than in a fiduciary capacity.

(e) "Bond" means an obligation to pay a sum of money upon the happening of a stated event.

(f) "Class Gift" means a devise or gift to a body of people, uncertain in number at the time of the gift, to be ascertained at a future time, who are all to take in equal, or other definite proportions, the share of each being dependent for its amount upon the ultimate number of people in the class. (Example: "I leave $10,000 to my grandchildren." In the example, the decedent's grandchildren constitute a class of people which may grow over time, but will be a certain number upon the passing of the decedent.)

(g) "Codicil" means a supplement or an addition to a will; it may explain, modify, add to, subtract from, qualify, alter, restrain or revoke provisions in an existing will. A codicil does not purport to dispose of the entire estate or to contain the entire will of the testator, nor does it ordinarily expressly or by implication revoke an entire prior will.

(h) "Conveyance" means the transfer of legal title to property from one person, or a class of person, to another person by deed. This term may also include assignment, lease, Bad River mortgage or encumbrance of land.

(i) "Court" means the Trial Court of the Bad River Band.

(j) "Decedent" means a person who has passed leaving property that is subject to administration.

(k) "Deed" means a conveyance of realty by a writing signed by a grantor, whereby title to realty is transferred from one at another.

(l) "Devise" means a gift of real property by will.

(m) "Devisee" means any person to whom lands or other real property are given by will.

(n) "Devolution" means the passage or transfer from one person to another; the falling on or accrual to one person as the successor of another.

(o) "Disinterested" means that the person hearing the oral declaration of testator's intent will not benefit in any way directly or indirectly nor will a spouse or any relative of said disinterested person benefit in any way directly or indirectly

(p) "Distributee" means any person to whom property of a decedent is distributed other than in payment of a claim, or who is entitled to property of a decedent under his or her will or the laws governing intestate succession.

(q) "Domicile" means the place where a person has his or her true, fixed and permanent home and principal establishment, and to which whenever he or she is absent he or she has the intention of returning.

(r) "Donee" means the recipient of a gift or conveyance, in contrast to the giver or donor.

(s) "Emancipation" means the surrender, from a parent or guardian, the care and custody of a child or incompetent either by law or Court order.

(t) "Escheat" means reversion of property to the Band because no valid heir or person to inherit exists.

(u) "Estate" means, when used in connection with probate proceedings, the totality of assets and liabilities of the decedent, including all manner of property, real and personal.

(v) "Executor" means a person designated by a testator to carry out the directions and requests in the testator's will and to dispose of the testator's property according to the provisions of his or her will.

(w) "Fiduciary" as a noun means that person or institution who manages money or property for another and who must exercise the highest standard of care in such management activity; as an adjective, it describes the nature of a trust, which is the highest and most scrupulous duty owed to another.

(x) "Fraud' means an intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of inducing another in reliance upon it to part with some valuable thing belonging to him or her or to surrender a legal right. A false representation of a matter of fact, whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of that which should have been disclosed, which deceives and is intended to deceive another so that he or she shall act upon it to his or her injury.

(y) "Guardian" means a person empowered by the law to care for another who, by virtue of age or lack of mental capacity is legally unable to care for himself or herself. Guardianship may also involve the duty to manage the estate of a child or incompetent person.

(z) "Half-blood" means the degree of relationship which exists between those who have the same father or the same mother, but not both parents in common, i.e., a person who shares one parent in common with another person.

(aa) "Heir" means any person, including the surviving spouse, who is entitled under the law governing intestate succession to an interest in the property of a decedent.

(bb) "Heir by Killing" means any person who knowingly participates, either as a principal or as an accessory before the fact, in the willful and unlawful killing of the decedent.

(cc) "Heirship Land" means land (s) held in trust by the BIA for the benefit of an individual Tribal member or, for fractionated land, land that has been conveyed to more than one Tribal member, through inheritance.

(dd) "Holographic Will" means a will that is entirely written and signed by the testator in his or her own handwriting.

(ee) "Incompetent" means a person who is recognized by a court of law to be substantially incapable of managing his or her property or earing for himself or herself by reason of infirmities of aging, developmental disabilities, or other like incapacities. Physical disability without mental incapacity is not sufficient to establish incompetence.

(ff) "Indian" means a member of the Bad River Band, or any other person of Indian blood who is a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe.

(gg) "Inheritance" means that which is inherited or to be inherited. Property which descends to heir on the intestate passing of another. An estate or property which a person has by descent, as heir to another, or which he or she may transmit to another, as his or her heir.

(hh) "Insolvency" means the status of a person when his or her total assets are of insufficient value to pay his or her debts.

(ii) "Interested Witness" means any of the following:

(1) An heir of the decedent.

(2) A beneficiary named in any document offered for probate as the will of the decedent.

(3) A beneficiary of a trust created under any document offered for probate as the will of the decedent.

(4) A person named as Administrator or personal representative in any document offered for probate as the will of the decedent.

(5) Additional persons as the Trial Court may include.

(jj) "Intestate" means one who passes without leaving a valid will, or the circumstance of dying without leaving a valid will effectively disposing of all of the estate.

(kk) "Intestate Succession" means succession to property of a decedent who passes without a will or with a will that has certain provisions which are not valid, i.e. no longer alive or available.

(ll) "Issue" when used to refer to persons who take by intestate succession, means children, grandchildren, lineal descendants of more remote degree, except those who are the lineal descendants of living descendants. The term includes legally adopted children and non-marital children and his or her issue.

(mm) "Letters Testamentary" means the formal document of authority and appointment given to an Executor or Administrator by the Court, empowering him or her to fulfill his or her duties as required by his or her position as Administrator.

(nn) "Life Estate" means an estate that exists as long as the person who owns or holds it is alive. its duration may also be for the lifetime of another person.

(oo) "Living Will" means a document in which a person sets forth directions regarding medical treatment to be given if he or she becomes unable to participate in decisions regarding his or her medical care.

(pp) "Member" means an enrolled member of the Bad River Band.

(qq) "Band" means the Bad River Band.

(rr) "Passes or Passed" means a person who has died.

(ss) "Personal Property" means all property other than real property.

(tt) "Personal Representative" includes both Administrators, as appointed by the Court, and Executors, once approved by the Court to administer the decedent's estate.

(uu) "Pretermitted" means a child or other descendant omitted from the will of a testator.

(vv) "Property' means any interest, legal or equitable in real or personal property, without distinction as to kind, except trust property.

(ww) "Real Property" means all interest in land or in buildings or improvement permanently attached to land.

(xx) "Renounce" means to make an affirmative declaration of abandonment. A waiver of rights.

(yy) "Residue" means the surplus or left over part of a testator's estate remaining after all the debts and distributions have been completed.

(zz) "Take by Representation" means the principle upon which the issue of a decedent takes or inherits the share of an estate which his or her immediate ancestor would have taken or inherited, if living.

(aaa) "Taker" means one who takes or acquires an estate, in whole or in part, by devise.

(bbb) "Testator" means a decedent who passes leaving a valid will.

(ccc) "Title" means the formal rights of ownership of property. Title is the means whereby the owner of lands and property has the just possession of his or her property.

(ddd) "Transfer" means an act of the parties, or of the law, by which the title to property is conveyed from one person to another.