The Court Docket Shows What a Roofer's Bid Leaves Out

A roof bid tells you what a roofer intends to charge. A court docket tells you what happened after a customer or a supplier disagreed with that roofer. Before you hand any roofer a deposit, it is worth searching the courts for the company and its owners, then putting what you find beside the answers you already collected.

Missouri does not issue a state roofing license, so there is no state list that shows a roofer's history of problems. Court filings fill part of that gap. They will not show every complaint, and they will not show every bad job. They do show which disputes reached a clerk or a judge, who the parties were, and how each dispute ended. For a homeowner comparing three or four roofers, that is a fair amount of information for an hour of searching.

What a docket actually shows

A docket is the running list of entries in one case. For a roofing dispute, the entries usually give the case number, the court, the filing date, the names of the parties, the type of claim, and the outcome. The outcome line carries the weight. A case can be dismissed, settled, or closed with a judgment. A judgment can be paid in full, or it can stay open with a balance still owed.

Read the party names closely. A roofing company may be sued under its owner's personal name, under a limited liability company name, or under a trade name painted on its trucks. If the contract says one name, the truck says another, and the court file says a third, ask the roofer which entity is actually doing the work and which one stands behind the warranty. The answer belongs in your comparison, because the company that signs the contract is the company you will have to find later if something goes wrong.

Roofer comparison

Start with the business name exactly as it appears on the contract. Then look up that legal name in the Missouri Secretary of State business entity search, which shows the entity's registered name, its status, and the people listed as officers or managers. Search each of those people by name in the courts. Add any trade name from the truck, the website or the invoice to the list. Then search the county circuit court where the roofer's office sits, and the county where you have seen its recent jobs, because a dispute often lands in the county where the work was done.

Missouri's Case.net search covers many circuit court cases across the state, and each county circuit clerk can help with records the online index does not show. Search results can miss cases filed under a misspelled name, so run each name twice, once with the suffix such as Inc. or LLC and once without it.

• The legal name of the company, and any name it used before
• Each owner, officer or manager listed with the state
• Any trade name on the truck, the website or the invoice
• The county of the office, and each county where you have seen recent jobs

Not every case means the same thing, so read each one for what it is. A collection case over an unpaid supplier invoice tells you something about cash flow and about who is owed money. A damage or small claims case filed by a homeowner tells you that a customer believed the crew caused harm or left the work incomplete. A contract dispute over a change order tells you that the scope and the price came apart. A case where a worker or subcontractor sued over pay tells you that someone on a past job was not paid on time. Each one calls for a different follow-up, and none of them settles the question alone.

Pay attention to whether a judgment was satisfied. A paid judgment closes out the debt, and the docket will usually show the satisfaction. An open judgment means a court ruled that money is owed and it has not been paid. That is a question to put to the roofer directly, in writing, before you sign anything.

Once you have the docket in hand, return to each roofer with the same written questions. Use the same order and the same wording for every company, so the answers can be compared line by line. Record each reply with the date it arrived. If a roofer's answer matches the docket, note it. If the answer leaves out a case the docket shows, that gap is the finding, and it belongs next to the price and the scope on your comparison sheet. If a roofer names a case before you find it, and the case was closed and is explained in writing, that is also a fact to record.

What a docket cannot tell you

A clean docket does not prove good work. Many disputes settle before anyone files, and many customers never sue even when a job goes badly. A filed case is also not a ruling on the work in many instances. Some cases end in dismissal, some end by agreement, and some end after a hearing with a clear winner. Read the outcome line before drawing any conclusion, and treat a filed case as the start of a question rather than a verdict.

A docket also cannot see the crew on your roof. It will not tell you whether the crew sets ladders on firm ground, how it protects your landscaping, or whether the foreman answers the phone when you call. Those answers come from the roofer's written scope and from the way each roofer responds to your questions. The docket is one input among several, and it is more useful when it is compared with the rest of what you have gathered.

What it costs

Searching the public index is generally free. Copies of filed documents usually carry a fee, and a certified copy costs more than a plain copy. Plan on about an hour of searching for each roofer still on your list, including the county searches. Write the date of each search at the top of your notes, because dockets change after a new filing, and a search from three months ago may not show a case filed since.

The search does not change the price of the roof. Its value shows up in the comparison, where it can keep a low bid from becoming a roofer you have to chase for a balance or a warranty repair later.

What to ask

Send each roofer the same written questions, and keep the replies with the date they came in. Stick to facts and avoid accusations. Ask for each reply in writing.

• Has the company, or any owner or officer, been a party to a lawsuit or small claims case in the last several years?
• Is any judgment against the company or an owner still unpaid?
• Which legal name will appear on my contract, and which entity will hold the warranty?
• Has any case involved a crew working on a job like mine?