Friday, September 22, 2006

New York Supreme Court Docket Info

New York County’s Supreme Court -- that’s the trial level court -- is making available online information about its civil dockets. SCROLL (Supreme Court Records On-Line Library) enables people to look up information such as listed attorneys, scheduled conferences, motions, and decisions. The researcher has to know the index number, the calendar number, or the plaintiff’s or defendant’s name.

I played around for a while, trying my own last name (no hits) and common last names (plenty of hits for “martinez” and “lee”). A number of cases list Macy’s as a defendant. Variants of “Trump Corporation” appear as both plaintiff and defendant.

The decisions are often handwritten notes on a standard form, indicating that a case is dismissed because of the parties didn’t respond or because a settlement was reached. The graphic below lists what's available for a case that is still active –- a slip-and-fall action against Macy’s that survived a summary judgment motion.



The public database does not include “(i) documents in matrimonial and electronically-filed cases and those covered by a sealing order; and (ii) documents, County Clerk data and court activity data in Mental Hygiene Law Cases.”

SCROLL also does not include cases that are e-filed. For those, one can go to the state’s e-courts system. E-courts even has an option for searching the full text of decisions -- e.g., a trial court’s denial of a motion for summary judgment.

Thanks: beSpacific.

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