South Carolina Code of Laws
Chapter 3 - Commercial Code - Negotiable Instruments
Section 36-3-103. Definitions.

(a) In this chapter:
(1) "Acceptor" means a drawee who has accepted a draft.
(2) "Consumer account" means an account established by an individual primarily for personal, family, or household purposes.
(3) "Consumer transaction" means a transaction in which an individual incurs an obligation primarily for personal, family, or household purposes.
(4) "Drawee" means a person ordered in a draft to make payment.
(5) "Drawer" means a person who signs or is identified in a draft as a person ordering payment.
(6) "[Reserved]".
(7) "Maker" means a person who signs or is identified in a note as a person undertaking to pay.
(8) "Order" means a written instruction to pay money signed by the person giving the instruction. The instruction may be addressed to any person, including the person giving the instruction, or to one or more persons jointly or in the alternative but not in succession. An authorization to pay is not an order unless the person authorized to pay is also instructed to pay.
(9) "Ordinary care" in the case of a person engaged in business means observance of reasonable commercial standards, prevailing in the area in which the person is located, with respect to the business in which the person is engaged. In the case of a bank that takes an instrument for processing for collection or payment by automated means, reasonable commercial standards do not require the bank to examine the instrument if the failure to examine does not violate the bank's prescribed procedures and the bank's procedures do not vary unreasonably from general banking usage not disapproved by this chapter or Chapter 4.
(10) "Party" means a party to an instrument.
(11) "Principal obligor," with respect to an instrument, means the accommodated party or any other party to the instrument against whom a secondary obligor has recourse under this article.
(12) "Promise" means a written undertaking to pay money signed by the person undertaking to pay. An acknowledgment of an obligation by the obligor is not a promise unless the obligor also undertakes to pay the obligation.
(13) "Prove" with respect to a fact means to meet the burden of establishing the fact (Section 36-1-201(b)(8)).
(14) "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.
(15) "Remitter" means a person who purchases an instrument from its issuer if the instrument is payable to an identified person other than the purchaser.
(16) "Remotely-created consumer item" means an item drawn on a consumer account, which is not created by the payor bank and does not bear a handwritten signature purporting to be the signature of the drawer.
(17) "Secondary obligor," with respect to an instrument, means (a) an indorser or an accommodation party, (b) a drawer having the obligation described in Section 36-3-414(d), or (c) any other party to the instrument that has recourse against another party to the instrument pursuant to Section 36-3-116(b).
(b) Other definitions applying to this chapter and the sections in which they appear are:
"Acceptance" Section 36-3-409 "Accommodated party" Section 36-3-419 "Accommodation party" Section 36-3-419 "Account" Section 36-4-104 "Alteration" Section 36-3-407 "Anomalous indorsement" Section 36-3-205 "Blank indorsement" Section 36-3-205 "Cashier's check" Section 36-3-104 "Certificate of deposit" Section 36-3-104 "Certified check" Section 36-3-409 "Check" Section 36-3-104 "Consideration" Section 36-3-303 "Draft" Section 36-3-104 "Holder in due course" Section 36-3-302 "Incomplete instrument" Section 36-3-115 "Indorsement" Section 36-3-204 "Indorser" Section 36-3-204 "Instrument" Section 36-3-104 "Issue" Section 36-3-105 "Issuer" Section 36-3-105 "Negotiable instrument" Section 36-3-104 "Negotiation" Section 36-3-201 "Note" Section 36-3-104 "Payable at a definite time" Section 36-3-108 "Payable on demand" Section 36-3-108 "Payable to bearer" Section 36-3-109 "Payable to order" Section 36-3-109 "Payment" Section 36-3-602 "Person entitled to enforce" Section 36-3-301 "Presentment" Section 36-3-501 "Reacquisition" Section 36-3-207 "Special indorsement" Section 36-3-205 "Teller's check" Section 36-3-104 "Transfer of instrument" Section 36-3-203 "Traveler's check" Section 36-3-104 "Value" Section 36-3-303
(c) The following definitions in other chapters apply to this chapter:
"Banking day" Section 36-4-104 "Clearing house" Section 36-4-104 "Collecting bank" Section 36-4-105 "Depositary bank" Section 36-4-105 "Documentary draft" Section 36-4-104 "Intermediary bank" Section 36-4-105 "Item" Section 36-4-104 "Payor bank" Section 36-4-105 "Suspends payments" Section 36-4-104
(d) In addition, Chapter 1 contains general definitions and principles of construction and interpretation applicable throughout this chapter.
HISTORY: 1962 Code Section 10.3-103; 1966 (54) 2716; 2008 Act No. 204, Section 2, eff July 1, 2008; 2014 Act No. 213 (S.343), Section 24, eff October 1, 2014.

Editor's Note
2014 Act No. 213, Section 51, provides as follows:
"SECTION 51. This act becomes effective on October 1, 2014. It applies to transactions entered into and events occurring after that date."
Effect of Amendment
2014 Act No. 213, Section 24, reserved subsection (a)(6), which formerly defined "good faith"; and in subsection (a)(13), substituted "36-1-201(b)(8)" for "36-1-201(8)".

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