What Is a Pasco County Court Docket
A docket is the official log of a case. It lists each filing and each court event in the order it happened. The first line is usually the case opening. After that come the motions, notices, hearings, orders, and the final disposition. A Pasco County court docket reads like a timeline. You can see what was filed, who filed it, and the date the Clerk entered it. Each line is short. The detail of the underlying paper, such as the body of a motion or the text of an order, lives in the document itself, not in the docket line.
The docket and the full case record are not the same thing. The docket is the index. The case file is the stack of documents behind that index. In Pasco County, the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller keeps both. Court dockets cover every case type the trial courts hear, from felony and family matters down to small claims and traffic. The same record set holds Circuit Court cases and Pasco County Court cases, since one Clerk office serves both tiers.
Reading the docket first saves time. It tells you whether a hearing is set, whether a judgment was entered, and whether a case is open or closed. For the documents behind the entries, you move to the full Pasco County court records file.
How to Find Pasco County Court Dockets Online
Dockets are searched through OCRS, the Online Court Records Search hosted by Civitek Florida for the Pasco Clerk. The entry page asks each visitor to pick an access mode. The Public mode is anonymous and needs no login. The Attorney mode is for attorneys of record and needs a user ID and password. Both modes reach the same search form after a short disclaimer screen. The disclaimer cites Florida AOSC 15-18 and warns that the online data is informational, not the authoritative record.
Once inside, the form shows two tabs. Person Search runs on a name. Case Search runs on a full case number. Either one opens the docket for a matching case. The steps below walk through a search by case number, which is the fastest path when the number is known.
- Open the Pasco OCRS entry page at civitekflorida.com/ocrs/county/51 and click Public.
- Read the disclaimer that cites AOSC 15-18, then click I Agree to open the search form.
- Click the Case Search tab. Enter the four-digit Year, then choose the Court Type code from the dropdown.
- Type the six-digit Sequence number. Leave the Party Identifier and Branch Location fields at their default % wildcard unless you know the exact suffix and branch.
- Click Search. Open the matching case to view its docket entries in date order.
- If no match appears, confirm the court-type code and the year, then try the Person Search tab with a last name instead.
The case-number components matter. A Pasco case number is built from the year, the court-type code, the sequence number, an optional party identifier, and an optional branch location. The Party Identifier and Branch Location both default to % on the form. That wildcard tells OCRS to return all suffixes and both court branches, so most users never have to change it.
Pasco County Docket Court-Type Codes
Every Pasco case number carries a two-letter court-type code. The code tells you what kind of case the docket belongs to before you open it. The Case Search dropdown and the Person Search court-type filter both use the same list. Knowing the code helps you narrow a name search that returns too many hits. For example, a divorce docket carries DR, a felony docket carries CF, and a traffic infraction carries TR.
| Code | Court Type |
|---|---|
| AP | Appeal from County Court |
| CA | Circuit Civil |
| CC | County Civil |
| CO | County Ordinance |
| CT | Criminal Traffic |
| DR | Domestic Relations / Family |
| CF | Felony |
| GA | Guardianship |
| MM | Misdemeanor |
| MO | Municipal Ordinance |
| IN | Non-Criminal Infraction |
| CP | Probate / Guardianship |
| SC | Small Claims |
| TR | Traffic Infraction |
Some codes overlap by court tier. CF, CA, DR, CP, and GA are heard at the Circuit Court level. MM, CC, SC, CT, TR, IN, CO, and MO sit at the Pasco County Court level. The AP code marks an appeal moving up from county court. Felony charges run under CF, while criminal traffic such as a DUI charged in court uses CT. For the help with reading a criminal docket, see the Pasco County criminal records page.
What a Pasco County Docket Entry Shows
A docket result holds a fixed set of fields. Read the top block first for the case identity, then read down the entry list for the case history. The party block names the plaintiff, defendant, petitioner, or respondent, plus the attorneys where public. The entry list runs from the oldest filing to the newest. Each line carries a date, a short event label, and sometimes a link to a viewable document. The fields below appear on most public Pasco court dockets.
| Field | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Case Number | Year, court-type code, sequence number, party identifier, and branch location. |
| Parties | Plaintiff, defendant, petitioner, or respondent, with attorney names where public. |
| Filing Date | Date the Clerk opened the case. |
| Entry Date | Date the Clerk logged each docket line. |
| Event Type | The action, such as a motion, order, notice, hearing, judgment, or capias. |
| Document Link | A link to a viewable image when access rules allow it. |
| Disposition | The outcome, such as dismissed, plea, adjudicated, withheld, or judgment entered. |
Hearing data shows up inside the entry list too. A scheduling line gives the court date, the courtroom or facility, the judge or division, and the hearing type. When you track a live case, the most recent hearing line is the one to watch. A docket may also carry money data on criminal and traffic cases, including bond, fines, costs, and payment status.
Courts That Publish Pasco County Dockets
Pasco sits in the Sixth Judicial Circuit, which also covers Pinellas County. Florida runs a two-tier trial-court system, and both tiers feed their dockets into the same Clerk system. That means a single OCRS search reaches dockets from the general-jurisdiction court and the limited-jurisdiction court at once. Appeals and the higher state courts keep their own separate dockets.
- Circuit Court (Sixth Circuit): felony, family, probate, guardianship, juvenile, circuit civil, and injunction dockets.
- Pasco County Court: misdemeanor, county civil, small claims, traffic, and ordinance dockets.
- District Court of Appeal: appellate dockets for cases moving up from the circuit court.
Both Pasco trial tiers hold court in Dade City and New Port Richey. The Circuit Court and the County Court share the Robert D. Sumner Judicial Center on the east side and the West Pasco Judicial Center on the west side. A docket does not change based on which building heard the case, because the Clerk indexes both branches in one system. For court-by-court detail, see the Pasco County Circuit Court page. To reach the office that maintains the dockets, see the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller page.
Note: juvenile delinquency and dependency dockets are restricted by Florida law and do not appear as ordinary public cases in OCRS.
Docket vs. Full Case Record in Pasco County
The split between a docket and a full case record trips up many first-time searchers. A docket is a list. A full case record is the set of documents behind that list. The docket tells you a motion was filed on a date. The full record holds the text of that motion. For most quick lookups, the docket answers the question. For legal review, evidence, or proof, the full document is what you need.
| Docket | Full Case Record | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | List of dated entries | Full filed documents |
| Access | Often online and free through OCRS | May need a fee, a certified-copy order, or a courthouse visit |
| Use | Track case progress and hearings | Legal review, evidence, and proof |
| Content | Event labels and dates | Motions, orders, exhibits, judgments |
Document access has limits. Florida AOSC 15-18 governs what the public sees online, and Rule 2.420 sets which categories stay confidential. Some entries link to a viewable image. Others show only the label, with no link, because the document is sealed, redacted, or held back from web display. When a document is not viewable online, the Clerk's Court Records desk can pull it in person, subject to the same access rules.
Pasco County Docket Terms Defined
Docket lines lean on short legal terms. A few of them carry weight that a plain reading can miss. The definitions below cover the words most likely to show up when you scan a Pasco court docket from top to bottom.
- Docket
- The chronological list of filings and court events in a case.
- Motion
- A written request asking the court to do something.
- Order
- A judge's written directive on a motion or other issue.
- Continuance
- A postponement of a hearing or trial to a later date.
- Capias
- A court order for arrest, often issued after a failure to appear.
- Disposition
- The outcome or current result of a charge or case.
- Hearing
- A scheduled court session where the judge takes up an issue in the case.
How to Read a Pasco County Court Docket
Start at the top. The case number and party block tell you what kind of case it is and who is in it. Then scan the entry list by date. New activity sits at the bottom on most views. A hearing line gives you the next court date and the courtroom. An order line tells you the judge ruled. A disposition line near the end tells you how the case closed.
Watch the disposition language closely on a criminal docket. A charge is what the State accuses a person of doing. A conviction is a finding of guilt. An adjudication withheld is a Florida outcome where the judge finds the facts but holds back the formal conviction, often with probation. Those three are not the same, and a docket that reads "adjudication withheld" is not a conviction.
One more limit. OCRS is not a certified record, and a same-day filing may not show until the next business day. For an authoritative copy of any docket or document, order a certified copy from the Clerk rather than printing a web page. The Pasco County Court Records FAQ covers the common questions about access and certification.