S.D.N.Y. Securities and Class Action Complaint Alerts

The source and its limits

At the Actor's sweep of 2026-10-17, the S.D.N.Y. feed was live and published only the entry types below. cmp (complaints) is among them:

What the feed gives you, and what it does not

Each entry has the case number, the case title (lead parties), a short docket text in brackets such as [Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion], the document number with a link, and the filing time. The feed has no nature of suit, party list or full docket text, so "securities" or "class action" appears in a live entry only if the court's docket text for it contains the phrase.

• caseTypes: ["civil"] with newCasesOnly returns document number 1 of every new civil case: the complaint or notice of removal.
• entryKeywords such as class action or securities narrow live entries whose docket text contains them. With includeHistorical and a free CourtListener API token in courtListenerApiKey, plain keywords are also sent to the RECAP archive's search of entry descriptions, and archive records carry natureOfSuit, cause and the full parties list.
• partyKeywords matches the case title in live entries and the party list in archive records, so it also finds companies that are not first-named.

Limits worth knowing

• The feed covers the trailing 24 hours, and busy courts publish thousands of entries a day. Use filters and maxEntriesPerCourt.
• A party that is not first-named may be missing from a live case title; the archive pass and docketUrl have the rest.
• This page describes public docket data and how to filter it. It is not legal advice.

Fields you get

Example output

Shape of a new civil case record from the live S.D.N.Y. feed (field names from the Actor; the case and parties are placeholders):

{
  "recordType": "docket-entry",
  "court": "nysd",
  "courtName": "U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York",
  "courtType": "district",
  "state": "NY",
  "caseNumber": "1:26-cv-09999",
  "caseNumberShort": "26-cv-9999",
  "caseTitle": "Doe v. Example Corp. et al",
  "caseType": "civil",
  "entryText": "Complaint",
  "entryCategory": "complaint",
  "documentNumber": 1,
  "docketUrl": "https://ecf.nysd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/DktRpt.pl?000000",
  "likelyNewCase": true,
  "matchedFilters": [
    "caseType:civil",
    "newCase"
  ],
  "isNew": true,
  "source": "pacer-rss"
}

Use cases

Every new civil complaint, hourly

Run the first input on an hourly schedule. Each run lists cases opened since the previous one, to screen by title for securities and class-action matters.

Keyword search with the archive

Run the second input to combine live keyword matching with a 30-day RECAP archive search for "class action" and "securities", with nature of suit where the archive has it.

Issuers you follow

Put the companies you follow in partyKeywords with newCasesOnly to be told when a new S.D.N.Y. case names one of them.

How to run it

You need an Apify account and its API token (Console → Settings → API & Integrations). Each run is billed per result to your account; set a maximum total charge for the run to cap spend.

With curl

The sync endpoint starts a run, waits up to 300 seconds and returns the dataset items. Every new civil case in S.D.N.Y. since the last run:

export APIFY_TOKEN=<your Apify API token>

curl -sS -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/owlabee~pacer-docket-monitor/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${APIFY_TOKEN}" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "courts": [
    "nysd"
  ],
  "caseTypes": [
    "civil"
  ],
  "newCasesOnly": true,
  "onlyNewSinceLastRun": true,
  "stateStoreName": "new-civil-nysd",
  "maxEntriesPerCourt": 300,
  "notifyOnlyOnResults": true
}'

The second input adds the keywords and a 30-day RECAP archive pass. The keywords apply to live entries too, so live complaints whose docket text lacks them are left out:

{
  "courts": [
    "nysd"
  ],
  "caseTypes": [
    "civil"
  ],
  "entryKeywords": [
    "class action",
    "securities"
  ],
  "newCasesOnly": true,
  "includeHistorical": true,
  "courtListenerApiKey": "<your free CourtListener API token>",
  "historicalSinceDays": 30,
  "maxHistoricalPerCourt": 100,
  "maxEntriesPerCourt": 300
}

From an AI agent (MCP)

Apify hosts an MCP server. This config exposes only this Actor to the agent:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "owlabee-pacer-docket-monitor": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=owlabee/pacer-docket-monitor",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${APIFY_TOKEN}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Then ask, for example: Which new lawsuits were filed in the Southern District of New York today naming a bank? Give me case number, title and the docket link.

Python, Node.js and more examples

Runnable curl.sh, python.py, node.mjs and mcp.json files for this Actor are in examples/pacer-docket-monitor on GitHub.

No code: Zapier, Make or n8n

Apify's official apps on these platforms can run this Actor and pass its results on. Step-by-step recipes: Get New PACER Docket Entries in Slack with Zapier.

FAQ

Does the S.D.N.Y. feed include complaints?

Yes. At the 2026-10-17 sweep its feed advertised cmp among its entry types.

Why might a securities complaint not match my keyword?

The live feed's docket text is short. If the text for a complaint does not contain your phrase, it will not match. The new-civil-cases input catches it regardless.

Can I search all parties, not just the lead ones?

In archive records, yes: partyKeywords matches the full party list. Live entries only have the case title.

Can I follow one case after it is filed?

Yes. Put its number in caseNumbers; 1:26-cv-03810, 26-cv-3810 and similar forms all work.

Is this legal advice?

No. It describes public docket data and how to filter it.