Executive Summary: A NY FL CA court records API comparison forces an honest answer to a question lenders ask constantly: can one API give me litigation data across the three states where most of my borrowers operate. The short version is that court data is fragmented by design, since the large majority of cases are handled in state courts spread across thousands of separate venues.[1] Each state runs its own system: New York through its statewide courts, Florida through county clerks of court, and California through its own judicial branch portal.[2][3] This guide compares how the three systems differ for lenders and states plainly where Cobalt's court API fits today and where it does not.
Why does court coverage differ by state?
What makes court data so fragmented?
There is no single national civil-court index. PACER covers federal courts, but the vast majority of collection suits, breach claims, and money judgments that matter to lenders sit in state and county systems.[4] Each state decides what it publishes electronically, how it indexes cases, and which records are searchable, so coverage is uneven from one venue to the next.
Why does that matter for an underwriter?
It means no vendor offers clean, equal coverage of all three states. A responsible workflow treats each state separately, knows exactly which venues are covered by structured data, and routes the rest to a fallback rather than assuming silence equals a clean borrower. A borrower headquartered in California but doing business through a New York entity may have litigation in either system, and only one of those venues is reachable through a structured court API today. The workflow has to know which is which.
How do New York, Florida, and California court systems differ?
How are the three systems organized?
New York operates a statewide unified court system, which makes state-level business litigation searchable in a relatively consolidated way. Florida runs court records primarily through county clerks of court, so coverage is county-by-county rather than uniform statewide.[2] California operates a statewide judicial branch with superior courts in each county, accessible through the California Courts portal.[3]
What does that mean for searching them?
A county-clerk model like Florida's means a "Florida search" is really a stack of county searches, which is why structured coverage there is defined at the county level. New York's consolidated model supports a state-level search. California's structure is statewide but is served by its own portal, not by Cobalt's court API.
Where does Cobalt's court API fit across these three states?
Which jurisdictions does the API actually cover?
Cobalt's Court Records API accepts exactly two jurisdiction values: `newYork` and `miamiDade`. That means New York State is covered, Miami-Dade County in Florida is covered, and nothing else is. The two venues were chosen because New York is a major center for alternative lending and Miami-Dade is a hub for South Florida small-business lending, so they concentrate where this borrower base actually files.
What about California court records?
This is the critical honesty point. Cobalt does not return California court records. California appears in Cobalt's product line only as a contractor-license state through the separate Contractor License API (`GET /contractorSearch`), which verifies CSLB license status, not litigation.[5] For California court matters, the team must use the California Courts portal or a third-party vendor as a fallback.[3]
| State | Cobalt court records API | Court system model | If not covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | Supported (`jurisdiction=newYork`) | Statewide unified courts | n/a within NY State |
| Florida | Miami-Dade County only (`jurisdiction=miamiDade`) | County clerks of court | Other FL counties route to Florida courts fallback |
| California | Not a court-records capability | Statewide judicial branch | Route to California Courts portal or vendor |
The line to hold is precise: Cobalt's court API covers New York State and Miami-Dade County. California is a contractor-license state for Cobalt, not a court-records state. CA litigation always routes to a fallback.
How should the API call and fallbacks be structured?
What does the supported call look like?
For the two covered venues, the call is callback-only. You send the business name, a supported jurisdiction, and a callback URL, and the structured result is POSTed back.
curl --location 'https://apigateway.cobaltintelligence.com/courtCases?businessName=Acme%20Holdings%20LLC&jurisdiction=newYork&callbackUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fyour-app.com%2Fcobalt-callback' \
--header 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY' \
--header 'Accept: application/json'What should the fallback logic do?
The workflow should branch on the borrower's venue. New York and Miami-Dade go to the API. Other Florida counties, California, and every other state route to the appropriate court portal or vendor. An unsupported venue must never be cleared as a no-litigation result.
What does the API return for the covered venues?
What fields come back?
The documented return fields are judgment details, case information, filing dates, parties involved, and judgment amounts where the court publishes them. Amounts are not always present, so a missing amount is unknown rather than zero. The search is by business name only, with no documented person, officer, or case-number search.
What does it not do?
It does not query PACER or federal courts, does not stream live docket events, and does not cover states beyond New York and Miami-Dade. There is no documented roadmap to assert for added states, so any future-coverage question routes to Cobalt sales rather than a promise in copy.
How does state coverage fit the broader risk stack?
Who owns the decision?
Cobalt is a data source, not a decisioning engine. The lender sets thresholds for how a judgment or filing pattern affects a deal in each covered venue. Court review pairs with the lien half of diligence in the pre-funding UCC lien search underwriter workflow and the sanctions half in BSA/AML for alternative lenders and OFAC's role.
What compliance limit crosses all three states?
The FCRA applies regardless of state. When court-derived judgments inform a credit decision through a consumer reporting agency, the law limits reporting most civil judgments older than seven years or the governing statute of limitations, whichever is longer.[6]
How can a lender map this to its own footprint?
The practical move is to mark which of your borrowers sit in New York or Miami-Dade, where the court API applies, and which sit elsewhere and need a fallback path. You can book a Cobalt demo to confirm current coverage, see the return fields, and plan how California and other venues route outside the API.
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