Hardy County Court Docket Searches
Pick your court level first. That choice drives every Hardy County court docket search. Circuit and Family cases run through WVPASS, the state portal for public Circuit records. Magistrate cases, civil or criminal, run through the Magistrate Case Record Search, known as MCRS. The County Clerk's land and estate subscription covers a different record set, so treat it as something other than a Circuit docket database.
- Read the court name on the notice, citation, pleading, or order.
- Use the case number if known. Otherwise, search the public portal with the available party-name fields.
- Confirm Hardy County, the court level, case type, and filing year before opening a result.
- Read the docket in date order and distinguish filings, settings, orders, and dispositions.
- Call or visit the proper Hardy clerk when a result is missing, unclear, restricted, or incomplete.
Phone and counter service still work when the portals do not. Call the Circuit Clerk at 304-530-0230 for Circuit and Family questions. For Magistrate matters, the Magistrate Clerk answers at 304-530-0212. You can also visit or mail the office at 204 Washington Street, Moorefield, WV 26836, once you have confirmed the fees and the request method the office accepts.
Hardy Dockets Split Between Two Portals
No single screen lists every Hardy County court docket. The West Virginia Judiciary splits the work between two portals. WVPASS is the statewide layer for Circuit records and public documents. Its launch material describes free registration, free search, Circuit documents back to 1999. Downloads run 25 cents per page plus nominal card processing. The site sometimes stalls with a loading error. When that happens, reload it. Work with the fields it shows, and call the Circuit Clerk if it stays down.
MCRS takes a first name, last name, or case number and returns up to 30 Magistrate case-information results. It posts no court documents. Its own disclaimer warns that results may not be accurate, complete, or a full case history. For the complaint, citation, judgment, or other paper, call or visit Diana Shoemaker's Magistrate Clerk office.
| System | Hardy docket coverage | Key limit |
|---|---|---|
| WVPASS | Circuit and Family records | Portal access may require registration or reload |
| MCRS | Magistrate case information | Thirty-result cap and no online documents |
| County Clerk records | Deeds, estates, wills, liens, and plats | Not a court docket search |
Court Dockets: What They Show
Think of a docket as the clerk's timeline. Rule 79 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure sets the pattern for civil dockets. Entries sit under each file number. They cover filings, process and proof of service, appearances, orders, verdicts, judgments, and brief notes on their nature and date. Criminal clerks keep records too, entering orders and judgments as they come. What you get is an index and a chronology. It is not always the full text of every paper in the file.
| Case Number | The year, case type, and sequence assigned by the clerk. |
|---|---|
| Party | A person or organization named in the matter, when public. |
| Filing | A pleading, motion, notice, or other paper received by the clerk. |
| Setting | A scheduled hearing, conference, trial, or other court event. |
| Order | A written court decision or direction entered in the case. |
| Disposition | An outcome or status resolution that must be read in context. |
A complaint or charge is not a judgment. A hearing date is not a final result. When the exact ruling matters, request the underlying order instead of trusting a short docket label.
Hardy Case Numbers Reveal the Docket Type
One uniform case-number format has covered West Virginia since January 1, 1996. Each number carries the year, the case type, and a sequential count. Official appellate materials show format examples drawn from Hardy County. Use those for the pattern alone. Do not repeat private party names or chase them as live case leads.
- 20-C-25
- A Circuit civil format with year, C case-type code, and sequence.
- 97-F-20
- A historical Hardy Circuit felony format.
- 21-JA-122
- A juvenile abuse-and-neglect format whose record remains restricted.
- 19-TAD-001
- A procedural-manual example for an adult drug treatment file, separate from its source criminal number.
Match the exact punctuation when a system asks for it. One letter can point to a different case class. That is not a small thing. A treatment-court referral opens a separate file. The original criminal case number stays in place. Handle any sign of treatment participation as sensitive information.
Hardy County Courts and Their Dockets
Hardy County belongs to West Virginia's 26th Judicial Circuit, joined by Hampshire and Pendleton Counties. The Circuit Court sits at the top as the general-jurisdiction trial court of record. Family matters run through the 25th Family Court Circuit. Hardy shares that circuit with Grant and Pendleton Counties. Magistrate Court takes many lower-level civil and criminal cases. Municipal courts operate only under local authority. The current Moorefield and Wardensville pages post no municipal docket portal.
| Court | Docket covers | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| Hardy Circuit Court | Felonies, higher-value civil cases, juvenile matters, appeals, and extraordinary proceedings | WVPASS or Circuit Clerk |
| Hardy Family Court | Divorce, custody, support, paternity, and related domestic matters | WVPASS or Circuit Clerk, subject to confidentiality |
| Hardy Magistrate Court | Misdemeanors, preliminary felony steps, smaller civil claims, warrants, and emergency protective orders | MCRS or Magistrate Clerk |
| Town-level matter | Local ordinance or municipal issue if a court is currently maintained | Confirm with Moorefield or Wardensville |
The official Hardy County judiciary page gathers these courts and their contacts in one place. That page is the state judiciary's own routing point for Hardy County court information.
Check the directory before you call, visit, or request a copy. It shows which court owns a given Hardy County docket.
Hardy CourtPLUS Is Not Public Docket Search
CourtPLUS E-File serves a narrow crowd: registered attorneys, government users, pro hac vice users, and permitted staff filing and serving papers in Circuit and Family matters. It is not the public Hardy County docket search. That role belongs to WVPASS. Sending an ordinary records user to E-File points them at the wrong system.
Hardy Circuit and Family e-filing went live on August 1, 2017, and CourtPLUS became statewide in 2024. The 2026 CourtPLUS FAQ describes Vault, the digital repository where clerks scan paper files. Self-represented parties may still paper-file. Sealed documents must be paper-filed with the Circuit Clerk, and public access continues through the clerk's office as the law allows.
A missing PDF can mean several things. It can signal a paper filing, a delayed scan, a restricted document, the wrong portal, or a system outage. It does not mean the case is missing.
Court Dates and Settings in Hardy County
Hardy County posts no standalone daily trial calendar. A date may surface inside a WVPASS or MCRS case result. Verify it with the right clerk before you rely on it. Circuit calendar questions go to the Circuit Clerk. The Magistrate Clerk confirms hearing and trial dates for that court. Family Court scheduling has its own number: 304-530-0267.
Hardy Circuit holds regular terms under Trial Court Rule 2.26. Terms begin the first Tuesday of February, June, and October. Term dates say nothing by themselves. They do not set individual motions, status conferences, trials, emergencies, Family Court hearings, or Magistrate proceedings. Settings can shift after a continuance or a new order. Match the latest notice to the docket. Before driving to Moorefield, review the Hardy County court schedule process.
The Supreme Court of Appeals does publish a current appellate docket. Filters cover year and argument type. That is an appellate calendar, not a Hardy trial calendar. Rural courthouses also close for weather and holidays, so check current judiciary closure information and call ahead.
Hardy Docket Dates Mark Different Events
A Hardy County court docket can carry several dates bunched together. Each one means something different. The filing date shows when the clerk received a paper. An entered date records an order or judgment reaching the docket. A setting date marks a planned court event. A disposition date signals an outcome or a status change. Mix them up and you may miss a deadline. You could misread the case entirely.
Hardy makes no official promise here. A new filing, scan, payment, or disposition need not appear online the same day. State dashboard data refreshes often. It stays preliminary; annual reports are the authoritative statistical record. When a fresh event matters, ask the clerk what the actual file shows. A portal timestamp guarantees nothing about notice or legal effect.
Docket Access Under West Virginia Law
West Virginia Code §51-4-2 sets the baseline: court records and papers are open to inspection, and clerks furnish copies, except where special law applies. West Virginia FOIA adds that public-record requests go to the custodian and that reasonable inspection and copying are available during usual business hours. Court-specific rules, statutes, and orders still control access to any court file.
Hardy County access boundaries:
West Virginia Code §48-1-303 keeps domestic-relations orders public while pleadings and exhibits remain confidential.
West Virginia Code §49-5-103 generally protects juvenile records.
West Virginia Code §48-27-312 restricts domestic-violence records and protects address and contact information.
West Virginia Code §61-11-26 governs eligible expungement and sealed records.
Never reproduce private identifiers. That includes full Social Security, tax, driver's-license, passport, account, card, PIN, and password data. Sealed, juvenile, family-file, domestic-violence, mental-hygiene, and expunged material may be unavailable even when the docket event itself is public.
Hardy Docket Copies Need the Right Custodian
A docket result tells you a file exists; the clerk supplies the actual document. Circuit and Family pleadings, orders, judgments, docket entries, and public-copy questions all belong to the Circuit Clerk. Magistrate documents come from the Magistrate Clerk, since MCRS publishes case information only. Recorded county papers are different. For wills, probate estates, deeds, plats, liens, and other recorded county papers, go to the County Clerk.
Mail a request or walk it in. Either way, include the case number, approximate year, case type, exact document name, return address, and a contact number. Say whether you want an ordinary, certified, or exemplified copy. Hardy publishes no complete certified-copy form or fixed turnaround. It posts no certified surcharge, accepted-payment list, general Circuit Clerk email, or drop-box procedure. Call before sending cash or any payment instrument.
West Virginia Code §59-1-11 sets a $1-per-page starting point. That is the base cost for a copy or paper leaving the Circuit Clerk's office. That figure covers only the base page. Certification, postage, unusual retrieval, and other record types can add more. The County Clerk keeps a separate fee schedule that never applies to Circuit docket copies.
How the Clerk Keeps Docket Records
Kelly J. Shockey is the listed Hardy County Circuit Clerk. Her office serves as registrar, recorder, and custodian. It holds Circuit and Family Court pleadings and documents. It administers juries, records court activity, files required reports, and helps self-represented litigants with procedure. It never gives legal advice. That role makes the office the local source for case-number checks, filed orders, judgments, public-access questions, and copy instructions.
Hardy County Circuit Clerk
Hardy County Courthouse
204 Washington Street
Moorefield, WV 26836
304-530-0230
Fax: 304-530-0231
Two different hour lists exist for the Hardy courthouse. The county directory gives general hours of 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., while the Circuit Clerk page lists 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Call before travel. Details on parking, courthouse security, public terminals, or a special records-room entrance are not published, so ask the clerk directly.
The Hardy Courthouse Docket Trail
The official Hardy Circuit Court page names the judges and the Circuit Clerk attached to the local court. The page itself identifies each officeholder.
Judge John H. Treadway Jr. sits at the Hardy courthouse. Judge H. Charles Carl III keeps chambers in the Hampshire County Judicial Center. That center is a product of the shared 26th Circuit. Even so, the arrangement does not move a Hardy case file away from the Hardy custodian.
The county's record history runs deep. The first court record-book entry dates to February 7, 1786. The current courthouse went up between 1911 and 1914. Modern milestones came fast. Uniform numbering arrived in 1996. Hardy e-filing followed in 2017, then statewide CourtPLUS in 2024. WVPASS came in 2025, and a state lower-court dashboard in 2026. Because of that spread, older docket books and newer scans can demand different search methods.
Hardy Filing Counts Need Context
The 2024 West Virginia Supreme Court annual report gives an official snapshot of Hardy County court filings. It is not a live docket. Circuit criminal filings totaled 97, including 71 felonies, and Circuit juvenile filings came to 84. On the Magistrate civil side, the report counts 368 small claims and 36 domestic-violence emergency protective orders inside a reported total of 441. Read these as filings for that report year. They are not people, convictions, or currently pending cases in the Hardy County court docket.
Local clerks supply the annual figures under West Virginia Code §51-1-17(e). Treat the near-real-time dashboards as preliminary, since clerks correct records over time. For one case, use the docket itself; for year-based court workload, use the annual report.
City-by-City Court Dockets in Hardy County
Hardy County's incorporated places, per the official Census table, support just two city pages here: Moorefield and Wardensville. Padding a five-city layout with unincorporated communities would mislead readers. Both towns rely on the same Hardy Circuit, Family, and Magistrate systems for state-court matters.
Moorefield Court Records
Start with the court or agency named on the notice. State-law matters route to WVPASS, MCRS, or the Hardy clerk; town ordinance questions route through Moorefield's official office.
Wardensville Court Records
Check whether the citation names a town or state court. Current town contacts should be verified because no official Wardensville municipal docket portal was found.
Neither town posts a current municipal judge, a municipal docket portal, or a local copy procedure. That is an access gap, not proof that no town-level record exists. Ask the town clerk or administrative office who currently holds those records.
When a Hardy Docket Search Fails
A docket search that returns nothing can mean many things. You may have searched the wrong court. The name may be spelled differently. The case may predate uniform digital coverage, or a scan may not be indexed. A portal can simply fail to load. And the attachment you want may be paper-only, sealed, confidential, expunged, or protected by a specific rule. Without clerk confirmation, none of these possibilities should harden into a factual claim. None of them settles anything about a Hardy County court record on its own.
Work the problem in steps. Try the exact case number first, then a narrower name search. When the court level is unclear, check both WVPASS and MCRS. If neither answers the question, call the Circuit Clerk or Magistrate Clerk. Give only the facts needed to identify the file. For historical inquiries, ask what the source is. It may be a docket book, a civil order book, a paper case file, an index, or a digital scan.
Note: The safest Hardy County docket search ends with the originating clerk. Confirm there whenever identity, date, access, or outcome matters.
Map and Directions to the Hardy County Courthouse
Circuit Court and Family Court files are kept at the Hardy County Courthouse, 204 Washington Street, in Moorefield, near the historic Washington/Elm intersection where the present building was completed between 1911 and 1914. The Circuit Judge's chambers are in Room 203 and Family Court is in Room B-1. The County Clerk, in Room 111, is a different office for land, probate, and other recorded documents rather than the Circuit Court docket.
The county directory lists general courthouse hours of 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., while the Circuit Clerk's own page lists 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.; call ahead since neither parking, security screening, nor public-terminal availability is documented.