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Civil Court Judgments – A Preview
Most of the court records in the United States are civil court judgments.
These suits involve almost all aspects of civil life, such as those pertaining
to marriage and the family, property, and contracts. Accessing civil court cases
can be easy despite the fact that every judicial branch has hundreds or
thousands of them. Web sites abound on the Internet offering record-retrieval
services.
In simple terms, a civil court judgment is a decision or verdict on civil
court cases. Civil court cases are cases that do not involve violations of
criminal law. Generally (with a few exceptions), civil court cases do not
involve prison sentences and may only require restitution (as in
bankruptcy-related cases) or simple judgments (like child custody cases, for
instance). Now these can be further classified into major groups as follows:
• Family court cases – These are cases involving family issues: either
marriage-related or child-related. Marriage related cases can be further
sub-classified into several types:
a. Unions – marriage, same sex marriage, prenuptial agreements, common-law
marriages, cohabitation, registered partnership, legitimacy, etc.
b. Separations – Legal separation, annulment, divorce, alimony, adultery,
bigamy, etc.
c. Children-related – child custody, child support, visitation rites,
appointment of legal guardians, declarations of wards of state, paternity,
adoption, emancipation of minors, child abuse, juvenile delinquencies, etc.
• Probate cases – These are cases that relate to ownerships of property
(particularly land or buildings/facilities).
• Rent-related cases – These are cases that involve the relationship between a
landlord and tenant. There are many suits under this category in view of the
enactment of the rent control law which affects several high population areas
like Washington D.C., New York, or San Francisco. This law essentially limits
rent increases in identified housing establishments.
• Other civil cases – There are various other civil cases that cannot be
classified among those mentioned above. Examples of these are contract disputes,
damages (to property or persons), or small-claims cases.
Civil Court Judgments - The Issue of Availability
Most civil court judgments are available to the public. Some are not,
however, and these may be due to several reasons. Juvenile-related cases, grand
jury cases or cases with court orders to seal the records are not readily
available. For court processes that do not have such restrictions, the court
clerk (of the court where the court records are kept) issues these records
through a request (simply filling out standard forms and paying the applicable
fee).
PACER, or Public Access to Court Electronic Records, is the United States
Federal Court system’s online record service that is accessible to anyone. Each
federal court (most of them anyway) maintain an online registry of their
records. This contains limited information about the case, however, and actual
documentation can be requested (for a fee) online. It is simply a matter of
registering for PACER service through the
PACER Service Center.
Other websites provide similar service, albeit, at a higher cost (since of
course, they do need to profit from doing the service for you). It could simply
be a matter of identifying the particular court where your civil court judgment
records are and the request can be easily be made through an online transaction.
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Enjoy the convenience of looking for civil court cases online by previewing the
top search service providers we have outlined at
our civil court
records section.
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