Garfield County Civil Docket Searches
Start with the Washington Courts Name & Case Search. It splits Superior from Courts of Limited Jurisdiction. Pick Garfield County Superior Court for Civil, Domestic, or Probate/Guardianship. Pick Garfield District Court for Civil or Small Claim. Type the case number exactly if you have it. For a name search, match the spelling on the court papers. Use the portal's separate business mode for a company. Odyssey Portal offers another public route to Garfield Superior case information. Its Smart Search takes a record number or a name in last, first, middle, suffix order. Wildcards and filters for location, date, and case status help. The official guide notes that only the first 200 results come back. Narrow a broad common-name search before concluding there is no match.
- Decide whether Superior Court or District Court holds the civil matter.
- Select Civil, Domestic, Probate/Guardianship, or Small Claim as appropriate.
- Search with the exact case number or the party's court-paper spelling.
- Open the case and compare location, filing date, roles, and events.
- Request a complete pleading, order, or certified judgment from the clerk.
Two Garfield Civil Court Routes
The two Garfield civil dockets divide by subject. Garfield County Superior Court holds general civil matters plus domestic, probate, guardianship, and related categories. Garfield District Court takes limited civil actions, small claims, anti-harassment filings, vehicle-impound matters, and name changes. These come within its legal authority. Your search category and clerk route must match the court that actually holds the file. A Small Claim search run under Superior will not find a District small-claims case.
| Court | Useful categories | Official record route |
|---|---|---|
| Garfield County Superior Court | Civil, Domestic, Probate/Guardianship | County Clerk, 509-843-3731 |
| Garfield District Court | Civil, Small Claim, anti-harassment, impound, name change | District clerk, 509-843-1002 |
| Asotin/Garfield Juvenile Department | Juvenile matters with separate restrictions | Shared department, 509-243-2024 |
District civil jurisdiction comes from Chapter 3.66 RCW. Checking the court level beats guessing from a party name or a loose description of the dispute.
Civil Dockets: What They Show
Think of a Garfield County civil court docket as a dated log of case activity. It can show the plaintiff or petitioner, defendant or respondent, filing and service events, motions, settings, disposition events, and judgment information. Odyssey breaks the record into Case Information, Party, Disposition Events, Events, and Hearings. The index may list an event but not the paper behind it. The clerk's file controls completeness.
| Case Number | Local court identifier, including punctuation and leading zeroes. Odyssey numbers can follow a year, type, sequence, county-code pattern; Garfield's county code is 12. |
|---|---|
| Parties | Plaintiff, petitioner, defendant, respondent, or another public role. |
| Filings | Summons, complaint, answer, counterclaim, proof of service, and pleadings. |
| Motions and settings | Motion, order, scheduling, pretrial, mediation, and hearing events. |
| Judgment activity | Judgment, dismissal, writ, garnishment, satisfaction, or appeal. |
| Access status | Document availability, redaction, sealing, or other restriction notation. |
Small Claims at Garfield District
Small claims run through Garfield District Court, not Superior. RCW 12.40.010 caps a claim at $10,000 for a natural-person claimant. Any other claimant faces a $5,000 cap. Those caps apply only to the small-claims route. Treat them as the ceiling for that path rather than for every District civil action. The local fee schedule shows a $35 small-claims filing fee. A small-claims docket may show a notice, service, response, setting, result, and judgment. The District record-request form lists several documents by name. These include Small Claim Notice/Judgment, pleadings, verdict form, and dismissal order. A case number alone does not tell the whole story of what occurred. For proof, request a certified judgment from the District clerk.
Small claim or civil action?
Select the case type shown on the filed papers. If it is unclear, call Garfield District Court before relying on an empty portal result.
What Cases Fill the Civil Docket
The civil docket covers many kinds of proceedings, and public access varies among them. Garfield Superior and District routes stay distinct even when both carry the civil label. The statewide search makes the split plain through separate court-level and case-type menus.
- Superior general civil claims and related motions or judgments.
- Domestic and family matters, subject to GR 22 privacy controls.
- Probate and guardianship cases held by Superior Court.
- District civil actions within chapter 3.66 RCW.
- Small claims under the separate RCW 12.40.010 procedure.
- Anti-harassment, name-change, and vehicle-impound filing routes identified locally.
Protection, family, guardianship, and anti-harassment files may hold safety-sensitive data. A public index can confirm a case exists while redacting an address or restricting a document.
Garfield Civil Filings and Judgments
Each docket entry answers a different question. A summons or complaint starts or describes a claim. A hearing entry shows when the court plans to take up an issue. An order states what the judicial officer directed. A judgment records an adjudicated obligation or result, and a later satisfaction or appeal entry can shift what the record means in practice.
| Record | What it establishes | Best source |
|---|---|---|
| Docket event | That an indexed event was entered | State search or Odyssey |
| Pleading or order | The filed or signed document's actual text | Responsible clerk |
| Certified judgment | A clerk-certified copy of the judgment | Responsible clerk |
| Hearing setting | A scheduled date subject to later change | Portal plus clerk confirmation |
When you need the document behind an index entry, not just the event list, turn to the Garfield County court case records route.
Hearings on the Civil Docket
Garfield District Court sets its local schedule by matter type. Civil, Small Claims, and Anti-Harassment matters sit at 10:30 a.m. Superior civil and family matters use their own published date and time blocks. Read any docket setting together with its court, date, courtroom, hearing type, and judicial officer. A generic schedule block alone does not prove a particular case is still set. Odyssey Search Hearings filters by location, hearing type, courtroom, judicial officer, and date. A continuance, scheduling order, or later event can move a civil date. Check the latest event, then confirm with the court. A reset does not mean dismissal. A hearing entry does not mean a judgment was entered.
Confirm every civil setting with the clerk before attendance because portal and published schedule information can change.
Garfield Civil Fees and Requests
Fees differ by court in Garfield County. District Court's schedule sets a $73 civil filing fee and a $35 small-claims filing fee. A transcript of judgment costs $20. An extended judgment runs $43, a writ $12, and an ex parte request $20. A certified copy is $5. Certified or exemplified copies run $20, and plain pages are $0.50 apiece. None of those District amounts apply to Superior requests automatically. Superior Court prices copies on its own schedule. Non-certified pages are $0.50 each, emailed pages $0.25. A certified copy costs $5 for the first page plus $1 for every additional one. The county allows up to five business days for copies or seven for a CD. Confirm current cost, timing, postage, and authentication for the file you want.
Garfield County Clerk
789 Main Street, Pomeroy, WA 99347
PO Box 915
509-843-3731
superiorcourt@garfieldcountywa.gov
Give the case number and party name first. Describe the document precisely, say whether you want an ordinary, certified, or authenticated copy, and ask which delivery methods the clerk offers.
Who Can See Civil Dockets
Washington GR 31 governs who may see court records. GR 15 covers sealing, destruction, and redaction of filings. GR 22 adds privacy rules for family-law and guardianship records, where the stricter limits usually bite. So a Garfield County civil court docket can stay open at the case-information level while a single document or personal detail stays restricted.
Public index does not mean public paper.
Use the clerk to learn whether a pleading, order, address, or protected detail may be released and whether authorization is required.
Anti-harassment and protection files deserve extra care. They can hold addresses, contact details, and allegations. Those should never be repeated from a docket example. Juvenile matters run under RCW 13.50.050 through the shared Asotin/Garfield Juvenile Department, not the usual adult civil search path. Never infer identity or outcome from a name match alone.
Civil Activity and the Migration Caveat
Numbers tell you scale, not stories. Washington AOC's Superior civil report logged 18 non-trial civil resolutions and zero trial resolutions. That count covers Garfield County for 2024. The 2025 annual view shows 20 non-trial resolutions and zero trial resolutions. A separate 2025 proceedings report lists 12 civil, 14 domestic, and 24 probate/guardianship non-trial proceedings. The hearings report counts 13 civil, 14 domestic, and 15 probate/guardianship hearings. They are different units, not unique litigants. Nor are they a live pending-case total.
District Court tells a similar story. Its 2024 Cases Filed table reports 22 civil cases and 2 small claims. Garfield District moved to CLJ-EJ on October 26, 2024. AOC warns that migration can leave later figures incomplete or undercounted. A blank statistical table never proves local inaction. Treat the reports as rough scale and lean on the clerk for any particular file.
A blank official search interface is the proper starting point. It exposes no party data along the way.
A portal result is only a locator. Pull the judgment, order, pleading, or certification you need from the clerk or court that legally holds the record.