PACER Help (U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit)

Minimum Search Parameters

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit search page is always the "Advanced" version of the page because the Court requires that you define at least the following search parameters:

• A case number, or
• A Party/Attorney AND one of the following:
  • a range of case numbers (not to exceed 3 years), or
  • in Cases Filed Between, a date range (not to exceed 3 years), or
  • in Cases Closed Between, a date range (not to exceed 3 years), or
  • in Docket Activity Between, a date range (not to exceed 3 years)
  or,
• A range of case numbers (not to exceed 3 years) AND one of the following:
  • in Cases Filed Between, a date range (not to exceed 3 years), or
  • in Cases Closed Between, a date range (not to exceed 3 years), or
  • in Docket Activity Between, a date range (not to exceed 3 years)
  or,
• An originating case number where the case number is an alien number.

Search by Case Number

To find a case by case number, type the case number in the Case Number/Range field. The format of case numbers is yy-nnnnn, where yy is the 2-digit year, and nnnnn is the number. For example, 12-12345

To find cases within a range of case numbers, you must enter a range of case numbers and a party/attorney name to search for.

1. The second case number must be later than the first case number and the range of case numbers may not exceed 3 years.
   In the case number, the first two digits represent the year, for example in 08-15001, the year is 2008.
2. In addition to the case number range, you must specify at least one of the following parameters:
   • A party/attorney name
   • A date range not to exceed 3 years for Cases Filed Between
   • A date range not to exceed 3 years for Cases Closed Between
   • A date range not to exceed 3 years for Docket Activity Between

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Search by Party/Attorney

To find cases with a specific party or attorney, you must enter the party/attorney name to search for and specify at least one additional search parameter.

1. Use the information below to define your search for the name.
   • A minimum of 2 characters must be included.
   • An asterisk (*) will match on zero or more characters: "Smil*y" will match "Smily", "Smilley" and "Smiley".
   • A question mark (?) will match on exactly one character: "Smil?y" will match "Smiley" and will not match "Smilley" or "Smily".
   • "*" and "?" do not count towards the 2 character minimum.
   • There is an implicit wildcard at the end of a search term: "Smith" will match "Smithers".
   • There is no implicit wildcard at the beginning of a search term, so use "*Smith" if you want to match "Jones, Smith, and Martin".
   • If you select the Exact Matches Only checkbox, you cannot use a wildcard, and there are no implicit wildcards.
   • A double comma will match a single comma in the last name: "Local,, 123" will match "Local, 123" for a last name and not use 123 for the first name.
   • The search is not case sensitive and spaces are not needed. For instance, both "Jones, Jim" and "jones,jim" will find the same information.
2. In addition to the Party/Attorney Name, specify at least one of the following parameters:
   • A case number or a case number range (not exceeding 3 years)
   • A date range not to exceed 3 years for Cases Filed Between
   • A date range not to exceed 3 years for Cases Closed Between
   • A date range not to exceed 3 years for Docket Activity Between

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Search by Alien Number

To find all cases for an alien number, type the alien number in the Originating Case Number field. The format of alien numbers is A123-456-789.
Wildcard usage is not allowed, you must enter the number in the format shown above.

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Other Search Parameters

You can use additional fields to filter the results, but keep in mind that you must define at least the required parameters (see Minimum Search Parameters) to perform a search.

• Case Type: Use this field to filter the results to show only cases of a specific type. Hold the [Ctrl] key and click to select multiple values from this list.
• Origin: Use this field to filter the results to show only cases that originated in a specific court or agency. Hold the [Ctrl] key and click to select multiple values from this list.
• Originating Case Number: Use this field to filter the results to show only cases where the lower court case number matches the string you enter here. Wildcard usage is allowed. No terminating "*" is assumed as it is for party name. Searching for "00cr123" will not find "00cr1234".
  Exception: To find all cases for a specific alien number, type the alien number in the this field. In this scenario, you do not need to enter any other search parameters.
• Nature of Suit: Use this field to filter the results to show only cases that have a matching nature of suit code. Hold the [Ctrl] key and click to select multiple values from this list.
• Sort by: You can sort by case number or date filed, in either ascending or descending order.
• Open Cases Only/Closed Cases Only/Both: You can filter the results to show only open cases, only closed ones, or both.

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Case Selection Page

After you define your criteria on the Case Search page and click the Search button, PACER shows you the cases matching your search criteria in the Case Selection page.

• To see the general docket for a case, click the case number link.
• To see lower court case information, case participants, and attorneys on the case, click the case title link.
• To see the docket for the lower court case, click the originating case number link.

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Last updated on 18 December 2013.