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Kansas Appellate Court Case File Searches

Kansas Supreme Court justices in 2007

Kansas Supreme Court and Court of Appeals case files at the State Archives are interfiled by the case number. The cases have an “S” (Supreme) or an “A” (Appeals) after the number to differentiate them. In order to have the case file pulled, you'll need to know the case number, or you can use the name of the case to find the case number. This page lists the indexes that are available at the State Archives and how to use them.

January 1990 to the present: Case Inquiry System

Look up the case by name in the Kansas Appellate Court website’s case inquiry system to get the case number and list of documents that were filed for the case:

https://www.kscourts.org/Cases-Decisions/Cases

Entry from Hatcher's Kansas DigestBetween 1861-1967: Hatcher’s Kansas Digest:

Hatcher’s Kansas Digest (kept on the reference shelves at the State Archives) indexes Kansas Appellate Court cases by the name of the case and also by subjects up to 1967. The surname of the defendant or plaintiff is listed in the index at the back. If you only know the defendant’s name, it will refer you to the entry under the plaintiff. For criminal cases the name of the case is often listed as: State v. [surname]

For example:
Entry under Stafford reads “Stafford, Jenkins v.

Go to entry under Jenkins, which reads:

Jenkins v. Stafford (135 K. 150, 9 P. (2d) 646) brok. § 36; fraud. § 39

The citation in parentheses after the name of the case is for the syllabus and opinion published in the Kansas Reports. To pull the volume, fill out a call slip like this:

SP
345.42
K13
volume 135
page 150

If you are not sure this is the case you are looking for, look at the section in the index for “brok” (short for Brokers) paragraph 36, or the section for “fraud” (short for Fraud and Deceit) paragraph 39. It will give some details of what the case was about.

Case syllabus from Kansas ReporsBetween 1861-1990: Kansas Reports

If you know the date of the Supreme Court decision, check the index of the Kansas Reports for that year (call no. SP 345.42 K13). Starting with volume 56 (July term 1895) the case number is given at the beginning of the court's syllabus for published opinions. Before July 1895 and for unpublished opinions, you can find the case number by searching the handwritten indexes in the original Supreme Court Appearance Docket indexes which are housed at the State Archives:

/archives/193998

There is a compiled name index for the Kansas Reports for volumes 1-62 (1861-1901) shelved with volume 62.

 Kansas Supreme Court case, Jenkins v Stafford