opinion: Lamar HUNT, Plaintiff, v. DAWSON COUNTY, MONTANA, Defendant-Appellant, and Robin F. Scully, Defendant-Appellee.
  C.A. No. 78-2298.
  United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
  Submitted June 4, 1980.
  Decided July 21, 1980.
  Dale Cox, Glendive, Mont., Gene Jarussi, Billings, Mont., for defendant-appellant.
  James L. Sandall, Sandall & Cavan, Billings, Mont., on brief; Bob Smith, Billings, Mont., for defendant-appellee.
  Before SKOPIL and FARRIS, Circuit Judges, and THOMPSON, District Judge.
  The Honorable Bruce R. Thompson, Senior United States District Judge for the District of Nevada, sitting by designation.
  FARRIS, Circuit Judge:
  Appellant Dawson County, Montana contracted to sell a parcel of land to J. D. Christianson. The contract did not reserve to the County any royalty interest in mineral rights. Upon performance of the contract, however, Dawson County conveyed the land to Christianson by a quit claim deed which reserved a QlA percent royalty interest in all oil, gas and minerals. In 1951, Christianson brought a quiet title action and acquired a confirmation deed which made no reservation of a royalty interest to the County.
  Plaintiff Lamar Hunt, lessee of the oil and gas rights to the property in question, brought this interpleader action to determine the validity of the County’s royalty interest, naming as defendants Dawson County and the mineral owners who acquired title through Christianson. The United States District Court for the District of Montana found for Christianson’s successors in interest on the ground that the County was bound by the result in Chris-tianson’s 1951 confirmation deed action. Dawson County appeals, contending that it was not a party to the confirmation deed action and that its royalty interest in mineral rights was therefore not determined in that proceeding. We agree.
  Under the Montana confirmation deed statute in effect in 1951, Christianson was required to name “all persons having any interest in said land, whose interest shall appear of record in the office of the county clerk . . . together with the county treasurer . . . .” Mont. Rev. Codes Ann. § 84-4145 (enacted by 1945 Mont. Laws, Ch. 43, § 2; repealed by 1977 Mont. Laws, Ch. 126, § 15). The provision for naming the county treasurer was intended to give the court jurisdiction to order the treasurer to execute a confirmation deed, not to give him or her authority to represent the County’s property interest. The treasurer must be named even if the County has no ownership interest in the contested land.
  Mont. Rev. Codes Ann. § 16-803, which was in effect in 1951, provides that a county “must be . designated [by its corporate name] in all actions and proceedings touching its corporate . . . property . .” Christianson was required to name the County by its corporate name to make it a party to the confirmation deed action. Since he failed to do so, the court had no jurisdiction to determine the validity of Dawson County’s royalty interest. To the extent the quiet title judgment and confirmation deed purported to determine the County’s interest, they may be collaterally attacked. Bentley v. Rosebud County, Montana, 230 F.2d 1, 6 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 351 U.S. 984, 76 S.Ct. 1051, 100 L.Ed. 1498 (1956).
  Reversed and remanded.
instruction: What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
  Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
  In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
  To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
  United States of America,
  Plaintiff, Appellant
  v
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendant, Appellee.
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendants, Cross-appellants
  v
  United States of America.
  Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
  of the Board
  Plaintiff, Appellants,
  v
  United States of America,
  Defendant, Appellee.
  This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
  Your task is to identify the state of the first listed state or local government agency that is an appellant.
choices: not Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachussets Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New New New New North North Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode South South Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Wisconsin Wyoming Virgin Puerto District Guam not Panama