U.S. criminal and civil public records can be checked at various court
levels, such as state or federal. Pertaining to civil records *only,*
I am trying to find out if it is true today that, in county level
courts nationwide, there are *always* (or virtually always) two
separate divisions -- referred to as the upper and lower divisions;
and that these must be checked separately rather than there at least
sometimes being an all-in-one records system that contains both upper
and lower civil court records. I'm told that the upper/lower divisions
usually break down along dollar amount involved, e.g. under a certain
amount = "small claims." Please note that I am *not* asking whether
there is a corresponding U.S. District (federal) court for each
county. There is, and confusingly I gather these may also be referred
to as "upper" courts.

If it helps clarify, what I need to do is determine whether my company
has been routinely and inaccurately double billed for each of our
single county civil records search requests, by a vendor claiming that
in all courts two divisions must be looked at (even if that only means
typing something a second time -- doesn't have to be in a different
physical location); and *never* are all civil records within a county
searchable by making one inquiry/query in single civil records pool.

My question is pretty much contained in the second sentence; hope it's
not too
verbose to discern! Don't be scared -- this is in reality probably a
very simple question, I just need to be extra sure I'm armed with the
right answer before I start accusing. For an answer I'm looking for
the general
frequency of the existence of this dual upper/lower civil records
structure that must each be separately queried to get the full
picture. Reliable data indicating anything from "always" to "usually"
to "often" to "half the time" to "sometimes" to "almost never." Of
course, a source with an actual breakdown of county courts or
percentages would be ideal, but I have no idea if one exists. Thanks!