Finding a Case by Title

Finding a Case by Title (Party Names)

You can retrieve a case when you know the name of one or more parties in the case:

At the Home page, click Find a Case by Title.
Type at least one party name, select the jurisdiction, and click GO.

For example, to retrieve a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit case involving Apple Computer, Inc., and Microsoft Corporation, type apple in the first text box and microsoft in the second text box (the order doesn't matter). Then select U.S. courts of appeals, select 9th Circuit from the drop-down list, and click GO.
When typing a party name, observe the following:
- If a party name contains a term too common to be searched (e.g., and, of, the), put quotation marks around the name (e.g., "commissioner of police").
- If a party name contains more than one term, put quotation marks around the terms if you want them to be searched as a phrase (e.g., "general motors").
- Put a space between multiple terms to retrieve cases in which the terms in the title appear within five terms of each other. If you want two terms to appear anywhere in the title, type one term in the first text box and the other in the second text box.
- Use the universal character (*) to represent one variable character in a party name. You can place it in the middle or at the end of a term, but not at the beginning. For example, anders*n retrieves party names containing Anderson and Andersen.
- Use the root expander (!) at the end of a party name to retrieve variant endings. For example, smith! retrieves Smith, Smithsburg, and Smithsonian (but not Smythe).
If you are not already registered or signed on, you will be prompted to do so.

Either the case or a list of cases matching the party name(s) you entered is displayed. If a list is displayed, you are not charged until you click a link to display a case.

To browse the retrieved case using headnotes, click a headnote number. You will jump to the beginning of the corresponding paragraph in the text. To return to the headnote, click the highlighted paragraph number in the text.
To access KeyCite information for the retrieved case, click the KeyCite status flag (if available) at the top of the case or click KeyCite this headnote from a headnote. See Checking a Document in KeyCite and Viewing Citing References from a Case Headnote for details.
To print the case, click Print Doc. See Printing Documents for details.
To retrieve a document that is cited in the retrieved document, click its hypertext link.
If your Find request retrieved a list of cases, you can retrieve the next or previous case in the list by clicking a Doc arrow at the bottom of the displayed case.