A docket in the United States is the official summary of proceedings in a

court of law A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordan ...

. In the United Kingdom in modern times it is an official document relating to delivery of something, with similar meanings to these two elsewhere. In the late nineteenth century the term referred to a large folio book in which

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

s recorded all filings and court proceedings for each case, although use has been documented since 1485.

Historical usage

The term originated in England; it was recorded in the form "doggette" in 1485, and later also as doket, dogget(t), docquett, docquet, and docket. The derivation and original sense are obscure, although it has been suggested that it derives from the verb "to dock", in the sense of cutting short (e.g. the tail of a dog or horse);Oxford English Dictionary 2nd ed. Definition of "... brief, summarized statement ... abstract, abridgement, digest, minute" described as obsolete and historical. "A memorandum or register of legal judgements". "A list of causes for trial" given as U.S. usage a long document summarised has been ''docked'', or ''docket'' using old spelling. It was long used in England for legal purposes (there was an official called the Clerk of the Dockets in the early nineteenth century), although discontinued in modern English legal usage. ''Docket'' was described in ''The American and English Encyclopedia of Law'' as a courts summary, digest, or register. A usage note in this 1893 text warns that term docket and calendar are not synonymous. A 1910 law dictionary states the terms ''trial docket'' and ''calendar'' are synonymous.

United States

In the United States, court dockets are considered to be

public records Public records are documents or pieces of information that are not considered confidential and generally pertain to the conduct of government. For example, in California, when a couple fills out a marriage license application, they have the optio ...

, and many public records databases and directories include references to court dockets. Rules of

civil procedure Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits (as opposed to procedures in criminal law matters). These rules govern how a lawsuit or case may be commenced; what kin ...

often state that the court clerk shall record certain information "on the docket" when a specific event occurs. The Federal Courts use the PACER (Public Access Court Electronic Records) system to house dockets and documents on all federal civil, criminal and bankruptcy cases, available to the public for a fee. The term is also sometimes used informally to refer to a court

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a phy ...

, the schedule of the appearances, arguments and hearings scheduled for a court. It may also be used as a

metonym Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. Etymology The words ''metonymy'' and ''metonym'' come from grc, μετωνυμία, 'a change of name' ...

to refer to a court's caseload as a whole. Thus, either sense may be intended (depending upon the context) in the frequent use of the phrase "crowded dockets" by legal journalists and commentators.

Supreme Court

In its meaning as ''calendar'', the docket of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

is different both in its composition and significance. The justices of the Supreme Court have almost complete discretion over the cases they choose to hear. From the large number of cases which it receives, only 70 to 100 will be placed on the docket. The Solicitor General decides which cases to present on behalf of the federal government.

Court docket links

Official

Unofficial

Docket Alarm, Inc.
provides a search engine and alerts for Federal Court dockets and bankruptcies, as well as providing programmatic access via an API.
Inforuptcy.com
is a PACER alternative website that provides all queries including dockets for U.S. bankruptcy courts.
LegalDockets.com
is the oldest docket portal on the internet. In addition to linking to all PACER courts, it also links to all state court dockets.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Docket (Court) Calendars Legal procedure Common law legal terminology