North Dakota § 51-07-00.1 - Definitions

§ 51-07-00.1. Definitions

As used in sections 51-07-01, 51-07-02.1, 51-07-02.2, 51-07-02.3, 51-07-02.4, and 51-07-03 unless the context or subject matter otherwise requires: 1. "Contract" means any written franchise agreement, sales agreement, dealer agreement, or security agreement, or other form of agreement or arrangement of like effect. 2. "Dealer" means a person that engages in the business of selling, at retail, new motor vehicles or trucks or new and used motor vehicles or trucks and possesses a current new motor vehicle dealer license as defined in section 39-22-16. 3. "Distributor" means any person who in whole or in part offers for sale, sells, or distributes any new motor vehicle to a new motor vehicle dealer, and any person that in whole or in part offers for sale, sells, or distributes any farm implement, machinery, or attachment or part for the same; or lawn and garden equipment, or part for the same; or semitrailer, or part for the same, to any person that retails all or any of these items. 4. "Franchise" or "franchise agreement" means any contract or addendum to a contract between a dealer and a manufacturer or distributor that authorizes the dealer to engage in the business of selling or purchasing any particular make of new motor vehicles or motor vehicle parts manufactured or distributed by the manufacturer or distributor. 5. "Franchisor" means a person that manufactures, imports, or distributes new motor vehicles and which may enter a franchise agreement. 6. "Good cause" means failure by a new motor vehicle dealer to substantially comply with material and reasonable requirements imposed upon the new motor vehicle dealer by the franchise agreement if the requirements are not unreasonable when compared to those requirements imposed on other similarly situated new motor vehicle dealers. 7. "Good faith" means honesty in fact and the observance of commercially reasonable, nondiscriminatory standards of fair dealing. 8. "Manufacturer" means any person that is engaged in the business of manufacturing or assembling new motor vehicles or any person that in whole or in part offers for sale, sells, or distributes any new motor vehicle to a new motor vehicle dealer. 9. "Merchandise" means farm implements, machinery, attachments, and parts for the same; lawn and garden equipment and parts for the same; and automobiles, trucks, and semitrailers and parts for the same. 10. "New motor vehicle" means a motor vehicle that has not been subject to a retail sale, the registration provisions of chapter 39-04, the title registration provisions of chapter 39-05, or the motor vehicle excise tax provisions of chapter 57-40.3. 11. "Owner" means a person, other than a lienholder, having the property in or title to a vehicle. The term includes a person entitled to the use and possession of a vehicle subject to a security interest in another person, but excludes a lessee under a lease not intended as security. 12. "Semitrailer" includes every vehicle of the trailer type so designed and used in conjunction with a truck that some part of its own weight and that of its own load rests upon or is carried by a truck, except that it does not include a mobile home. 13. "Successor" means the individual who, in the case of the owner's death, is entitled to inherit the ownership interest in the new motor vehicle dealership or who, in the case of an incapacitated owner of a new motor vehicle dealer, has been appointed by a court as the legal representative of the new motor vehicle dealer's property subject to sections 51-07-26 and 51-07-26.1. 14. "Truck" includes every motor vehicle designed, used, or maintained primarily for transportation of property or designed and used primarily for drawing other vehicles and not so constructed as to carry a load other than a part of the weight of the vehicle and load so drawn. 15. "Used motor vehicle" means a motor vehicle that has been subject to a retail sale, the registration provisions of chapter 39-04, the title registration provisions of chapter 39-05, or the motor vehicle excise tax provisions of chapter 57-40.3.