opinion: Mary W. GROVES et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CUMBERLAND CAPITAL CORPORATION and Richard Dance, Trustee, Defendants-Appellants.
  No. 74-1889.
  United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
  July 31, 1975.
  William B. Felknor, Felknor, Paine, DeLozier & Cunningham, Maryville, Tenn., Cecil D. Branstetter, Carrol D. Kilgore, Nashville, Tenn., for defendants-appellants.
  E. Bruce Foster, Ronald C. Koksal, L. Stephen Cash, Knoxville, Tenn., for plaintiffs-appellees.
  Before EDWARDS, McCREE and EN-GEL, Circuit Judges.
  PER CURIAM.
  This appeal involves a dispute over title to some valuable land in Tennessee abutting on 1-75, near one of its exits. The land was originally owned by Mrs. Etta Witherspoon, who by inter vivos transfers deeded it to her son, Thomas, and his three children, as tenants in common, these last three now being the plaintiffs in the instant litigation.
  At the time of the transfer of these titles, son Thomas signed five promissory notes for $3,000, each payable to his mother. (Appellees allege that he had at that time been adjudged incompetent.) On the death of son Thomas, his one-fourth interest in the property was left by will to his brother, David, the uncle of the plaintiffs, who then became a one-fourth cotenant in the subject property with the three plaintiffs. Prior to Thomas’ death, however, Etta Wither-spoon had assigned the five $3,000 notes to David, and since Thomas had made no payments thereon, David filed suit in 1967 in the Tennessee Chancery Court to enforce an alleged vendor’s lien by attaching the land and foreclosing on the notes.
  In this proceeding in the District Court Judge Taylor found that only son Thomas had actual notice of the state court action and that the three children, plaintiffs herein, all residents of Florida during the years concerned, were never notified after Thomas’ death in 1967. A default judgment was entered in the foreclosure action, and the property in question was ordered sold. David arranged for a strawman to buy the property in at $15,000, although he had already submitted a financial statement to defendant Cumberland Capital Corporation from which he wanted to borrow money, listing the property as his asset at a value of $600,000. After getting title to the property, David conveyed it to Cumberland under a deed of trust to secure over $125,000 in loans which Cumberland had made to him.
  Upon the plaintiffs’ filing the present diversity action in the District Court to recover their interests in the land, Judge Taylor found that failure of notice to the three children had deprived them of due process of law, held that the Tennessee Chancery Court decree was void, and awarded title to the plaintiffs. David did not appeal. Cumberland makes no defense of David’s conduct, but appears before us claiming to be a bona fide purchaser for value innocent of any culpable knowledge or behavior. It claims it is entitled to the property, since at most the title which David had acquired was voidable on grounds of fraud, but not void.
  Cumberland strongly contends that Tennessee law does not demand actual notice to the owners of land in a suit where the land was attached. Review of the applicable Tennessee statute, T.C.A. § 23-646 (1955), pertaining to publication on nonresidents shows that the Clerk of the Court was required to send notice of publication to the last known address of said nonresidents, but it specifically provides that his failure to do so should not deprive the court of jurisdiction in the premises.
  No one disputed that David knew where his nieces and nephews were at all of the applicable times.
  Preferring to decide this diversity case upon state rather than federal constitutional grounds, this court entered the following order:
  On receipt and consideration of an appeal in the above-styled case; and
  After consideration of the briefs, oral arguments, and the record, and in the interest of deciding all possible state issues in this diversity case before reaching any federal constitutional issues,
  It is the judgment of the court that the ease should be remanded to the District Judge for determination of whether or not defendant Cumberland Capital Corporation was a bona fide purchaser for value of the subject real property.
  The District Court may, at its discretion, reopen the record for the taking of additional testimony on this issue if it finds it desirable to do so.
  The District Court may, if it finds it desirable, enter additional conclusions of law after making the finding of fact referred to above.
  On completion of these proceedings, the adjudications referred to above will be forwarded to this court which retains jurisdiction of this appeal.
  We have now received and considered Judge Taylor’s careful findings and conclusion that Cumberland Capital Corporation was not a bona fide purchaser for value in the subject transaction.
  On consideration of the record in this case, we affirm the judgment of the District Court for those reasons only which are based on Tennessee law and which are set forth in his opinion of April 16, 1974, and his Memorandum on remand dated April 29, 1975.
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.
  Note that if an individual is listed by name, but their appearance in the case is as a government official, then they should be counted as a government rather than as a private person. For example, in the case "Billy Jones & Alfredo Ruiz v Joe Smith" where Smith is a state prisoner who brought a civil rights suit against two of the wardens in the prison (Jones & Ruiz), the following values should be coded: number of appellants that fall into the category "natural persons" =0 and number that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials" =2. A similar logic should be applied to businesses and associations. Officers of a company or association whose role in the case is as a representative of their company or association should be coded as being a business or association rather than as a natural person. However, employees of a business or a government who are suing their employer should be coded as natural persons. Likewise, employees who are charged with criminal conduct for action that was contrary to the company policies should be considered natural persons.
  If the title of a case listed a corporation by name and then listed the names of two individuals that the opinion indicated were top officers of the same corporation as the appellants, then the number of appellants should be coded as three and all three were coded as a business (with the identical detailed code). Similar logic should be applied when government officials or officers of an association were listed by name.
  Your specific task is to determine the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the appellant is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.