Dena Standley | December 08, 2022
Summary: Find your Tennessee court records online for Supreme Court cases. For trial cases, you may have to contact your court clerk to check the status of your case or pay a visit to the courthouse to retrieve copies of the court records.
Summary: Search your Tennessee court records online for Supreme Court cases. For trial cases, you may have to contact your court clerk to check the status of your case or pay a visit to the courthouse to retrieve copies of the court records.
You can look up any public court case in Tennessee online. An "open court" case is one whose records are not confidential. Aside from accessing the documents filed in the case, you may also attend the proceedings if you want to, even when you are not a party to the case.
A few files are, however, grouped as private. You would have to be a party to the case to see such files at the clerk of court's office. A juvenile case, for example, is not public.
However, anyone can access most debt collection lawsuits, bankruptcies, and probate cases. You don't have to reside in Tennessee to see these documents. They are available to anyone countrywide.
There are several ways to look up a court case. We will look at those shortly, but first, let’s learn about Tennessee’s court structure.
In order to find your case information online or in person, it’s important to understand how the civil courts are structured in Tennessee. When you know what courts have jurisdiction over certain types of cases, it will be easier for you to narrow down the court to which your case is assigned. In Tennessee, there are four levels of courts that deal with civil cases:
So, if you’ve been sued for a debt you owe, it’s very likely that your case will be assigned to the General Sessions Court in your county. If not, it’s most likely in the Circuit or Chancery Court.
The graphic below further illustrates the Tennessee civil court structure:
At the moment, Tennessee does not have a statewide court case search tool where you can check the status of your civil case online. But that doesn’t there is no way for you to check your case status.
Instead of looking online, try going to the courthouse in person or calling the court clerk to check on your case.
You can find your court clerk’s number on Tennessee’s Judicial Branch website. Go to the menu on the left side of the screen, click on the type of court in which your case is filed, then click on “Clerks” from the drop-down menu. From there, you should be able to find clerk contact information for your court.
The Tennessee Court Case History search is a free-to-use tool. The records contain all cases in the Supreme Court, Appeals Courts, and Criminal Appeals Court filed after September 1, 2006. Records are updated at the end of each business day.
Using this tool, you can find the case status and procedural history, but not for civil cases from the Circuit Court, Chancery Court, or General Sessions Court.
To find your case, you need some information regarding the matter. It can be;
The docket number is the number used to track a case. It is unique to every court case and appears on every document relating to the case once the number is assigned. For example, a lawsuit can have sequence number M2021-078921-COA-R3-CV.
To find that case using the docket number:
The system will produce all cases with that number listed as the appeal number. You can quickly scroll down to find your lawsuit.
If you are party to the lawsuit, use your name to sift through the files. You can also find other cases by using the names of those involved in the case.
If, for example, Crazy Debt Collector is suing you (Mark Harris):
The system will return all cases with Mark Harris as a party to the lawsuit. Using both names narrows down the search. If you enter just one, the results may be too numerous to display, or you may have to search through many cases to find yours.
To search by the name of the business suing you, select Business/Organization and click "Search."
If you are a defendant in the court case, you likely have the name of the case. Different courts may have different case styles. The simplest can be something like Harris v Crazy Debt Collector.
To find such a lawsuit:
Searching by style quickly narrows down the search because you use the names of both parties.
The case history tool discussed above only gives access to appellate cases. Debt collection cases are civil cases. SoHowever, if your debt collection lawsuit is still in the trial phase, you may need to search by county using your county’s court website.
You can use this Tennessee court directory to find your court online and call the court clerk for more information.
If you’ve been sued for a debt you owe, SoloSuit can help you respond in minutes. The first step to winning your debt collection lawsuit in Tennessee is to respond to the case with a written Answer. In Tennessee, you have 21 days to respond before you lose by default. When you lose by default, the debt collector can garnish your wages or put liens on your property.
To learn more about how to Answer a debt lawsuit, check out this video:
SoloSuit makes it easy to fight debt collectors.
You can use SoloSuit to respond to a debt lawsuit, to send letters to collectors, and even to settle a debt.
SoloSuit's Answer service is a step-by-step web-app that asks you all the necessary questions to complete your Answer. Upon completion, we'll have an attorney review your document and we'll file it for you.
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