Searching business names beginning with numbers

First, consider this.  Court PC will never charge you twice for a search that appears to be a duplicate of the same name with minor variations.  I have this policy because I know that to do a thorough search, you have to search a name such as "155 West Main Street Associates LP" twice, once using the numbers and once alphabetically.  Similarly, I advise searching a name like "DBD Development Partners" three or more times to catch entries as "DBD..." "D B D..." and "D.B.D..." etc.

So, please, if you're conducting a search for a business with names like these, run the search at least two ways and be sure that you've run a thorough search.  You'll only be billed for one search.

 

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Where the party name is unique, such as "1428 Coolidge Avenue Partners LLC," you can avoid the issue of leading numbers by searching the business name simply as *COOLIDGE AVE to catch both name variations by using a leading asterisk as a wildcard.  But for names with common terms, like "155 West Main Street Associates," a second search is necessary, as you can see from the data below...

Search twice, once as 155 W*MAIN and again as ONE*FIF*W*MAIN.  The search term ONE*FIF*W*MAIN uses internal wildcards and will retrieve both "...FIFTY.." and the misspelled "...FIFITY..." (as well as entries containing "FIFTEEN," but you can ignore those).  Remember to avoid inserting any spaces in your search terms, such as ONE* FIF* W* MAIN, since the search engine treats a space as a character and won't retrieve records without that space. 

Perhaps too much background...

It's reasonable to assume that if the name we're searching for begins with a number, we should enter the search terms so as to include that number.  Unfortunately, the data entry system used by the CT Judicial Branch wasn't always keeping "reasonable" in mind.  There have been inconsistencies over time, and when a name begins with a number that's especially evident.

Prior to the 2012 re-design of the CV/FA data system, it was impossible to enter a party name beginning with a number.  If you tried to do that, the entry was rejected.  All party name entries had to begin with a letter of the alphabet, although numbers could appear anywhere else in the name (leading to weird entries like "FOUR-65 ELM PARTNERS" for 465 Elm Partners,  etc.  

Unfortunately, it appears that this requirement persisted in the minds of certain court staff even though it was removed from the software.  As the above example shows, party names beginning with numbers, like "ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FIVE WEST MAIN STREET ASSOC.." could still occasionally be entered alphabetically, as in the 2014 case highlighted. 

Couldn't the software control to prevent this?  No.  You just can't set up a data entry field to invalidate alphabetical entries unless only numerical entries are acceptable in the field, which obviously can't be allowed when you're saving names in the field rather than just phone numbers or dates of birth. 

Paying special attention to the values in the "Year" columns below, we can see that numerical entries are pretty much the norm for cases entered after 2012...

...and that alphabetical entries were the norm prior to 2012.

Please bear these points in mind as you search party names.