(1) In this title, unless the context otherwise requires:

(a) "Bailee" means the person who by a warehouse receipt, bill of lading or other document acknowledges possession of goods and contracts to deliver them.

(b) "Carrier" means a person that issues a bill of lading.

(c) "Consignee" means the person named in a bill to whom or to whose order the bill promises delivery.

(d) "Consignor" means the person named in a bill as the person from whom the goods have been received for shipment.

(e) "Delivery order" means a record that contains an order to deliver goods directed to a warehouseman, carrier or other person who in the ordinary course of business issues warehouse receipts or bills of lading.

(f) "Document" means document of title as defined in the general definitions in Title 8.1A (§ 8.1A-201).

(g) "Good faith" means honesty in fact and the observance of reasonable commercial standards of fair dealing.

(h) "Goods" means all things that are treated as movable for the purposes of a contract of storage or transportation.

(i) "Issuer" means a bailee who issues a document except that in relation to an unaccepted delivery order it means the person who orders the possessor of goods to deliver. Issuer includes any person for whom an agent or employee purports to act in issuing a document if the agent or employee has real or apparent authority to issue documents, even if the issuer received no goods, the goods were misdescribed, or in any other respect the agent or employee violated the issuer's instructions.

(j) "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.

(k) "Shipper" means a person that enters into a contract of transportation with a carrier.

(l) "Sign" means, with present intent to authenticate or adopt a record (1) to execute or adopt a tangible symbol or (2) to attach to or logically associate with the record an electronic sound, symbol, or process.

(m) "Warehouseman" is a person engaged in the business of storing goods for hire.

(2) Other definitions applying to this title or to specified parts thereof, and the sections in which they appear are:

"Duly negotiate." § 8.7-501.

"Person entitled under the document." § 8.7-403(4).

(3) Definitions in other titles applying to this title and the sections in which they appear are:

"Contract for sale." § 8.2-106.

"Lessee in ordinary course." § 8.2A-103.

"Overseas." § 8.2-323.

"Receipt" of goods. § 8.2-103.

(4) In addition Title 8.1A contains general definitions and principles of construction and interpretation applicable throughout this title.

Code 1950, § 61-1; 1964, c. 219; 2003, c. 353; 2004, c. 200.