County Court: Civil, 1948-1983

County Court Civil is a series of selected and random samples.

The Monmouth County Court existed from 1947 to 1979. In 1979, the jurisdiction of the County Court was transferred to the Superior Court. County Court Civil comes under the New Jersey Superior Court, as part of the Law Division, along with County Court Special Civil and County Court Criminal. The Civil part has jurisdiction over cases where the principal relief requested is sought in the form of monetary compensation for damages. In 1993, County Court Civil was renamed Superior Court Civil.

 

 

 

 

County Court Civil Cases, sample cases & name changes, 1948-1983
In 1995, appraisal and selection was performed for 189 record cartons of County Court Civil jackets (loose papers for cases) from the period 1948-1977. These records were authorized for destruction by the New Jersey State Archivist on June 21, 1995. Archives retained about 10% of the 20,198 cases, consisting of both a selected and a random sample.

The selected sample of 35 record cartons was based on the following criteria: name changes, lien claims, and contested elections. These criteria were applied by reading the information on the outside of the case jacket, which usually provided information regarding the type of case. In addition, staff opened and evaluated other jackets based on the following criteria: unusually large files; cases involving a deceased party, some of which related to auto accidents; cases where one or more parties was a town or government agency; and cases where one of the parties represented an industry important in Monmouth County, such as a shore business or a railroad. About 25% of these additional cases (those that were opened and appraised individually) were retained.

To preserve typical cases, a random sample of twenty manuscript boxes was taken. The random sample was taken by taking the first twenty cases of each year after the selected sampling was performed. Reading some of the cases in the random sample confirmed the validity of the appraisal criteria in identifying cases of potential interest.

County Court Civil Judgment Books, 1949-1961
These judgment books have front indexes, and are arranged chronologically.

County Court Civil Law Division Civil Minute Books, 1948-1954
These books show plaintiff, defendant, motion, action, order, trial, action.

County Court Civil Trial Verdicts, 1932-1968
These are results of the trial verdicts, loose pages of a book, contained in two carton boxes.

County Court Civil Docket Minute Books, 1948-1993
Books indexed by case numbers, shows the names of the plaintiff, defendant, attorney for plaintiff, and judge, and any motions, actions, orders, trials, and other.

These records are open to the public.

An Access database was created January 26, 2005, for the sample and random cases containing 5,041 records. They are searchable by type of case: NC = Name Change; LC = Lien Claim; CE = Contested Election; and OC = Other Case. The database was supplemented by indexing the name changes in Change of Name Books 1 to 4 in the County Clerk’s Office. These books were microfilmed and the originals returned to the County Clerk. The microfilm is available in the Archives reading room. The books cover the period 1951 to 1983 as follows: Book 1, 1951-1968; Book 2, 1969-1976; Book 3, 1977-1981; and Book 4, 1981 to 1983. With the addition of entries from the books, which partially overlap the sample cases and extend the name changes from 1977 to 1983, the database has 4,263 cases indexed in the following categories: NC = 2,192; LC = 736; CE = 37; and OC = 1,298.

The loose papers are organized by year and docket number. The books are arranged chronologically.

Monmouth County Archives
125 Symmes Drive
Manalapan NJ 07726
(732) 308-3771

These Monmouth County Court Civil records were transferred to the Archives prior to 1995 under Accession Number 95-07.

This finding aid was created by Gary D. Saretzky on April 22, 1999, and revised August 17, 2004. It was updated June 22, 2018, by George Joynson.

Contact Superior Court, Civil Part at (732) 677-4300 for name changes from 1983 to present.