Glossary
Case
A single legal matter being handled by a court: one dispute, with assigned parties, a case number, and a docket. Cases can be civil or criminal, big or small, simple or complex.
A case starts when someone files an opening document with the clerk: a complaint (in a civil case) or charging document (in a criminal case). The court assigns it a case number, opens a docket, and from that point everything filed in the matter goes into that one numbered file.
A case ends when the court enters a final judgment, the parties settle, or the case is dismissed. After the final judgment, there may still be appeals, but each appeal usually gets its own appellate case number.