Find Civil Court Records in Catoosa County

Catoosa County civil court records are kept by the Superior Court Clerk in Ringgold, Georgia. The clerk's office is the official custodian of civil case filings, judgments, liens, and other instruments recorded in the county. You can search some Catoosa County civil court records online through the Georgia Superior Court Clerks' Cooperative Authority at gsccca.org/search, which indexes recorded documents from all 159 Georgia counties. For full case-level records such as pleadings and orders, contact the Catoosa County Superior Court Clerk directly in Ringgold or request copies in person at the courthouse.

Catoosa County Superior Court Clerk

The Catoosa County Superior Court Clerk in Ringgold is the office responsible for civil court records in the county. All civil cases filed in Superior Court come through this office. The clerk accepts new filings, opens case records, indexes documents by party name and case number, and maintains the official files for completed and active civil cases. This office is where you go to file a new civil lawsuit, request copies of existing records, or verify the status of a case.

Civil matters handled by the Catoosa County Superior Court include contract disputes, property ownership and boundary disagreements, personal injury lawsuits that exceed Magistrate Court limits, civil rights actions, business and commercial disputes, and appeals from lower courts. Domestic cases such as divorce and custody proceedings also generate civil court records maintained by the Superior Court Clerk. All of these matter types are indexed in the clerk's records system and are generally available to the public for inspection under the Georgia Open Records Act.

In addition to Superior Court records, Catoosa County has a Magistrate Court that handles small civil claims up to $15,000 and landlord-tenant matters. Magistrate Court civil records are kept separately from Superior Court files. If the case you are researching involved a small dollar amount, it may be in the Magistrate Court records rather than Superior Court civil files. Appeals from Magistrate Court go to Superior Court and create a second layer of records at the Superior Court Clerk level.

Note: For hours, address, and current contact information for the Catoosa County Superior Court Clerk, call the courthouse in Ringgold before making a trip to request civil records.

Online Civil Record Search for Catoosa County

The GSCCCA runs the main statewide online portal for recorded civil instruments in Georgia. Through gsccca.org/search, you can look up real estate documents, UCC filings, lien records, plat indices, and civil judgments that have been recorded with the Catoosa County Superior Court Clerk. This system is searchable by name, document type, and date range, and it covers all 159 Georgia counties.

The GSCCCA search portal below is the primary statewide tool for accessing recorded civil court instruments from Catoosa County and across Georgia. It covers documents recorded in the Superior Court Clerk offices, including those tied to civil case outcomes.

Visit gsccca.org to start your search for Catoosa County civil court records. The site lets you access the search index, set up filing alerts, and order digital certified copies of recorded documents without visiting Ringgold.

The GSCCCA search index is most useful for finding the downstream effects of civil cases, meaning the liens, security deeds, and judgments that get recorded after a civil case is decided. A civil judgment in Catoosa County that was entered as a lien against real property will appear in the GSCCCA lien index. This makes it a valuable complement to the case docket records held by the clerk's office in Ringgold. For full pleadings and case file documents, you still need to contact the clerk or visit in person.

Alerts and Certified Copies

Two GSCCCA services are particularly useful for ongoing civil record monitoring in Catoosa County. The Filing Activity Notification System, known as FANS, is a free service that sends email alerts when a document is recorded in your name or against a property you own. This is helpful for property owners and attorneys who need to track civil judgments, liens, or deed changes without checking the clerk's index by hand.

The GSCCCA eCertification portal shown below provides digital certified copies of recorded documents from Catoosa County and all other Georgia Superior Court Clerk offices. Orders placed online are processed without requiring a visit to the courthouse in Ringgold.

Order certified copies of Catoosa County civil court documents through the eCertification portal at ecert.gsccca.org. Documents produced through this system are tamper-proof and self-validating, which makes them suitable for legal and financial use in most contexts. Sign up for filing alerts at fans.gsccca.org to get notified when civil documents are filed in Catoosa County.

Georgia Law and Catoosa County Civil Records

Civil court records in Catoosa County are public records governed by the Georgia Open Records Act at O.C.G.A. sections 50-18-70 through 50-18-74. Under this law, all public records must be open for personal inspection and copying unless a court order or a specific statutory exemption limits access. For civil court records, this means that case filings, judgments, orders, and recorded instruments in Catoosa County are generally available to any person who requests them. You do not need to be a party to the case.

The Open Records Act gives agencies three business days to respond to a request. If the Catoosa County Superior Court Clerk cannot produce the requested civil records within that time, staff must describe what records exist and give a timeline for producing them. Standard copying fees under the Act are $0.10 per page for plain copies. Certified copies carry a higher per-page fee set by state statute. The first 30 minutes of staff search and retrieval time is free; additional time may be charged at a reasonable rate.

Each new civil case filed in Catoosa County must include a case filing information form under O.C.G.A. section 9-11-7.1. This form indexes the new case in the clerk's system. The statute also restricts personal identifiers in pleadings, limiting filings to the last four digits of social security numbers, account numbers, and the year of birth rather than the full date. These rules protect sensitive data in Catoosa County civil court records while keeping the records themselves open to public review.

Uniform Superior Court Rule 21 allows a court to restrict access to a civil file only when the harm to personal privacy clearly outweighs the public interest in open records. This is a high standard. Most Catoosa County civil court records stay fully accessible to the public throughout the case and after it closes.

Filing Civil Cases in Catoosa County

Civil cases in Catoosa County can be filed electronically by attorneys through the Odyssey eFileGA platform at efilega.tylertech.cloud. This system is open 24 hours a day. It lets attorneys file new cases, submit subsequent documents, pay fees online, and receive file-stamped copies when the Catoosa County clerk accepts the filing. Self-represented parties may use the same portal or bring paper filings to the clerk's window in Ringgold.

Once a civil case is filed in Catoosa County, the clerk assigns a case number and opens a file in the court's record system. All documents filed after that point are added to the same record. When the case concludes, any resulting judgment may be recorded as a separate instrument, creating an entry in the GSCCCA search index in addition to the Superior Court case docket. This two-part record structure means a full search for Catoosa County civil records may require checking both the clerk's case files and the GSCCCA portal.

CourtTRAX at courttrax.org provides fee schedules and fines data for Catoosa County courts. Review this site to confirm current filing fees before submitting a new civil case to the Catoosa County Superior Court Clerk.

Nearby Counties

Catoosa County sits in the northwest corner of Georgia and shares borders with several counties. Civil cases are filed in the county with jurisdiction over the dispute, so nearby county clerks may hold relevant records if a case crosses county lines.

Catoosa County also borders Whitfield County, Murray County, and Dade County. All of these neighboring counties maintain civil court records through their respective Superior Court Clerk offices and participate in the GSCCCA statewide online index.