This search is used to identify civil cases filed at federal district courts. Civil cases filed at the federal level may involve alleged violations of federal statutes or constitutional rights. Cases filed at the federal level include, but are not limited to civil rights issues, land usage, debt collection, and federal weapons statutes.
Cases may be brought to federal civil court by individuals, businesses or government agencies seeking monetary damages, an injunction and/or other remedies provided by law.
Results from this search include information may include the names of the parties involved, case number, filing date, the nature of the lawsuit and the disposition date.
Like a federal criminal record search, a federal civil record search is performed at the state level, not county.
Because Federal civil record searches are performed at the state level and by name only, there is a high probability of generating multiple record “hits” falsely matching the name of your subject, especially if the subject has a common name. Therefore, prior to requesting a Federal civil record search, the client should provide the subject’s full name including a middle name to differentiate your subject from other individuals with similar names.
If the client cannot provide the subject’s full name, a Social Security number trace can be performed to obtain this information, and to identify any aliases associated with the subject. Should any aliases be identified, searches should be performed using all aliases found.
Federal civil record searches are often overlooked in favor of county level civil searches. This can be a very bad choice, as civil cases filed at the Federal level sometimes cover areas not exposed to local county seat courts. For duediligence investigations, we strongly recommend Federal civil searches to be performed in conjunction with county-level civil searches, to cast a wider net for possible records associated with the subject of the investigation.