opinion: GENERAL OUTDOOR ADVERTISING CO. et al. v. WILLIAMS et al., Commissioners of Department of Public Works.
  (Circuit Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
  May 29, 1926.)
  No. 1988.
  Courts' <§=>493(3) — Pendency of prior suit in state court for personal judgment restraining state department of public works from enforcing rules held no ground for dismissing suit in federal court between same parties for same relief.
  Pendency of prior suit in state court to restrain state commissioners of department of public works from enforcing rules and regulations relating to advertising boards, and seeking merely personal judgment, and not involving title to property, was no ground for dismissing suit in federal court between same parties for same relief.
  Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts; Lowell, Judge.
  Suit by the General Outdoor Advertising Company, Inc., and others, against William F. Williams and others, Commissioners of the Department of Public Works, Division of Highways, of Massachusetts. From a decree dismissing their bill on defendant’s motion (9 F. [2d] 165), plaintiffs appeal.
  Reversed and remanded.
  • Lowell A. Mayberry, of Boston, Mass. (George L. Mayberry and Philip Mansfield, both of Boston, Mass., on the brief), for appellants.
  Melville Fuller Weston, of Boston, Mass. (Jay R. Benton, of Boston, Mass., on the brief), for appellees.
  Before BINGHAM, JOHNSON, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
  PER CURIAM.
  This is a bill in equity, brought by numerous complainants, seeking to restrain the respondents, commissioners of the department of public works, division of
  highways, of Massachusetts, from enforcing certain rules and regulations promulgated by the commissioners relating to complainants’ businesses of erecting and maintaining advertising boards in the state, on the ground that the rules and regulations are illegal and void, and that their enforcement would result in irreparable damage to the complainants and destruction of their property without due process of law or just compensation.
  In the District Court the respondents filed a motion to dismiss, setting forth that the complainants had previously brought a suit in equity, identical in character with this one and seeking the same relief, in the Supreme Judicial Coúrt for Massachusetts, and that the state court had taken jurisdiction of the bill and issued an injunction pendente lite. The motion was heard before a judge of the District Court, who entered a decree dismissing the bill, and this appeal was taken.
  We are of the opinion that the court erred in dismissing the bill. It is conceded that the District Court, as a federal court and as a court of equity, had jurisdiction and authority to entertain the bill. The mere pendeney of the prior suit in the state court, involving the same subject-matter, did not necessarily operate as a bar to the present proceeding and justify its dismissal.
  The complainants’ bill is not a proceeding in rem or to try the title to property, nor does it involve the exercise of possession or control over specific property. Had the respective bills been proceedings in rem or to try the title to property or involved the possession or control of specific property, the jurisdiction of the state court having first attached, the federal court would he precluded from exercising its jurisdiction over the same property to defeat or impair the state court’s jurisdiction, and the bill properly might have been dismissed. But such is not the case, for the bill seeks a personal judgment or decree against the defendants and the dismissal was not authorized. See Kline v. Burke Construction Co., 260 U. S. 226, 43 S. Ct. 79, 67 L. Ed. 226, 24 A. L. R. 1077; McClellan v. Carland, 217 U. S. 268; 30 S. Ct. 501, 54 L. Ed. 762; Boston & Maine R. R. v. Dutille (C. C. A.) 289 F. 320; Covell v. Heyman, 111 U. S. 176, 182, 4 S. Ct. 355, 28 L. Ed. 390.
  The decree of the District Court is reversed, and the ease is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion, with costs to the appellants.
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