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Search Operators

The search engine recognizes the following operators between search terms:

TERM EXPLANATION
AND each term must be included
OR either, but not necessarily both terms must be included
NOT the term cannot be included
( ) parenthesis: group terms to force the order of processing
" " quotation marks: searches for a literal string, exactly as typed

The first three are fairly self explanatory, and are dealt with in the examples below. Quotation marks are also straight forward: anything in quotation marks will be searched for as an exact string.

Finally, parenthesis are a very effective tool for grouping your search terms. The careful searcher uses them often to make sure that the search engine performs a search just the way the searcher intends. For example, submitting a search such as this:
contract or waiver and damages
 will not give the same results as this search:
damages and contract or waiver
 Using parenthesis, however, the following searches will get exactly the same results:
contract or waiver and damages
(contract or waiver) and damages
damages and (contract or waiver)

Search Examples

EXAMPLEEXPLANATION
contract waiver search for "contract" and "waiver" in documents
contract and waiver search for documents that contain "contract" and "waiver"
contract not waiver search for documents that contain "contract" but not "waiver"
"contract waiver" search for documents that contain the exact string "contract waiver"
person and judge and (contract or waiver) must contain "person" and "judge" and either "child" or "abuse".
contract and waiv* must contain " and strings that start with "waiv"

Using Special Fields in Searches

The N.J. Courts search engine recognizes the following special fields:

SEARCH FIELDEXPLANATIONEXAMPLE
caption Search for the name of a party to the case (caption=jones) and automobile and insurance
decided Date on which the decision was issued. The date must be entered in the following format:
dd-Mon-yyyy.
For example: 05-Feb-2002.		 (caption=jones) and (decided=05-Feb-2002) and automobile and insurance
court Designates a particular court to search in. Current valid choices are as follows:

njsupreme (Supreme Court)

njappellate (Appellate Division)

njtax (Tax Court)

 (court=njsupreme) and (caption=abbott) and school
citation
note: not yet operable, coming soon.		 Enter the N.J. Reports, N.J. Superior Court Reports, or N.J. Tax Court Reports citation for a case. (citation=326 N.J. Super. 123) and contract
docket
note: not yet operable, coming soon.		 Docket number for case. Must be in the same format as the following examples:

a-23-01 N.J. Supreme Court

a1234-01 N.J. Superior Court (Appellate Division)

1234-01 N.J. Tax Court

 (docket=a1234-01) and (contract or agreement)

REMEMBER: boolean commands (and, or, not) must appear between each search string or the search engine will assume "and".