opinion: Ronald MAGNETT, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. Joseph PELLETIER et al., Defendants. William Rhodes, Jr., Defendant, Appellant.
  No. 73-1276.
  United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
  Argued Nov. 5, 1973.
  Decided Nov. 26, 1973.
  Paul F. Markham, Boston, Mass., with whom Moulton, Looney, Mazzone, Falk & Markham, Boston, Mass., was on brief, for defendant-appellant.
  Ernest Winsor, Boston, Mass., with whom Paula W. Gold, Boston, Mass., was on brief, for plaintiff-appellee.
  Before COFFIN, Chief Judge, and ALDRICH and CAMPBELL, Circuit Judges.
  PER CURIAM.
  In this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, plaintiff Magnett sought to recover damages from various police officers, ultimately reduced to Rhodes, a police sergeant, for invading his premises and for an alleged assault causing him physical and emotional injuries. Defendant, concededly without a warrant, had entered plaintiff’s apartment and a room in which plaintiff’s four small children were sleeping. Following trial the court made extensive findings, Magnett v. Pel-letier, D.Mass.1973, 360 F.Supp. 902, disbelieving defendant’s testimony and that of his subordinate officers alleging consent and physical provocation by the plaintiff, and concluding that the intrusion had been unlawful. It also stated, however:
  “I am not persuaded that either an assault or a battery was committed on Mr. Magnett by Sergeant Rhodes or Officer Sylvia, nor am I persuaded that any harm was done to any one of the Magnett children. Having in mind that Mr. Magnett conceded that he never consulted a physician subsequent to and because of this incident, and that any loss of time from work he thereafter sustained, was unrelated to this incident, I find that Mr. Mag-nett did not suffer physical or emotional damage.”
  The court further found no basis for punitive damages, but concluded as follows.
  “Having in mind that the intended purpose of the Civil Rights Act was the protection and vindication of the civil rights of all persons, nominal damages have been proved once an invasion or deprivation of a right to which plaintiff was entitled has been shown. Basista v. Weir, 340 F.2d 74 at 87 (3 Cir. 1965). Nominal damages need not be alleged in a civil rights ease in order to permit their recovery. Accordingly, I find for plaintiff in the amount of $500 against the defendant . . . . ”
  We agree with defendant that $500 cannot be properly regarded as nominal damages. Nominal damages are a mere token, signifying that the plaintiff’s rights were technically invaded even though he suffered, or could prove, no loss or damage. Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. Co. v. Clay, 1952, 90 U.S. App.D.C. 206, 194 F.2d 888; “a small or token sum awarded to a person who has been wronged but who has not shown such an injury as to be entitled to compensatory damages.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1968). Other dictionaries use the word “trifling.” E. g., Black’s Law Dictionary 469 (Rev. 4th ed. 1968); Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 2353 (3rd rev. 1914). If a compensable injury has been shown, compensatory damages must be given; if not, nominal damages should not be used to compensate plaintiff in any substantial manner, since he has shown no right to such compensation. We do not accept those decisions that have awarded as nominal damages more than a token amount. Five hundred dollars charged against an individual police officer is no mere token.
  This is not to say that in a civil rights action a plaintiff who proves only an intangible loss of civil rights or purely mental suffering may not be awarded substantial compensatory damages. Smith v. Sol D. Adler Realty Co., 7 Cir., 1970, 436 F.2d 344, 350-351; Donovan v. Reinbold, 9 Cir., 1970, 433 F.2d 738, 743; Richardson v. Communications Workers of America, 8 Cir., 1971, 443 F.2d 974, 984-985. It is possible that the court may have misused the word nominal, and really intended to compensate plaintiff for actual, though wholly impalpable, injuries. But if so, a recital of such damages should not be left to a word of art whose ordinary meaning is just the opposite.
  Since it is conceivable that the court misspoke itself, fairness dictates a remand for further findings or articulation, if the court deems them warranted in the light of this opinion. If the court does not believe such to be warranted, the award shall be reduced to the sum of $1.00. No costs on this appeal.
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