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 respondents in the case that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the respondent is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

Opinion:
CITY OF BOSTON, Appellant, v. MASSACHUSETTS PORT AUTHORITY et al., Appellees.
No. 71-1046.
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
June 21, 1971.
John M. Hyson, Asst. Corporation Counsel, with whom Herbert P. Gleason, Corporation Counsel, and Suzanne Del-vecchio, and Thomas H. Martin, Asst. Corporation Counsel, were on brief, for appellant..
Donald R. Grant, Boston, Mass., with whom John S. Hopkins, III, and Ropes & Gray, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for Massachusetts Port Authority, ap-pellee.
Henry Paul Monaghan, Boston, Mass., with whom Henry E. Foley, Lewis H. Weinstein, Michael B. Keating, and Foley, Hoag & Eliot, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for Air Canada et al., appellees.
Before ALDRICH, Chief Judge, Mc-ENTEE and COFFIN, Circuit Judges.
COFFIN, Circuit Judge.
The City of Boston filed a 42 U. S.C. § 1983 complaint alleging jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343(3) and 1343(4) against the defendants Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Logan Airport, and all the airlines using that facility. The complaint alleges that the noise of airplanes taking off from and landing at Logan diminishes the value of public school properties in Boston. The diminution is alleged to amount to a taking without compensation and is said to violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court dismissed the complaint, 320 F.Supp. 1317, and the City appeals.
The problems of federal jurisdiction over this cause are serious ones, but we find it unnecessary to consider them. Regardless of which jurisdictional statute the City invokes, it must allege a violation of due process of law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The City, a municipal corporation and an instrumentality of the state, is in the position of suing the Port Authority, another instrumentality of the state, for taking the City’s property. Since, as the City admits, the Supreme Court has long held that a state may take property from a municipal corporation without compensation, the City’s Fourteenth Amendment claim must rest on proof that the Port Authority’s taking of its property was not authorized under state law and that by violating state law the Port Authority has violated due process.
If such a claim gave rise to a federal due process cause, then the federal courts would find themselves interpreting and applying state law whenever state officials were charged with violating it. Such a result would not only explode the limits of federal jurisdiction far beyond the reach of diversity and traditional civil rights jurisdiction, but it would also impair greatly the ability of the state courts to make definitive pronouncements on state law. A mere allegation that a state official had misconstrued or misapplied state law would be enough to expose him to a federal court decision. Indeed, in this case, because it turns entirely on a question of Massachusetts law, Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 500, 61 S.Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941) and involves the allocation of power between a city and a state agency, cf. Chicago v. Fieldcrest Dairies, Inc., 316 U.S. 168, 172, 62 S.Ct. 986, 86 L.Ed. 1355 (1942), we would very likely have abstained from decision even if the City could be said to have made out a cause of action under the Fourteenth Amendment. See Upshaw v. McNamara, 435 F.2d 1188, 1192 (1st Cir. 1970); Creel v. City of Atlanta, 399 F.2d 777 (5th Cir. 1968).
We have concluded, however, that the City’s complaint does not make out a federal due process claim. In Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1, 64 S.Ct. 397, 88 L.Ed. 497 (1943), the Supreme Court rejected a similar claim. The petitioner in that case brought a § 1983 action asserting that he was entitled by state law to the Republican nomination to the state legislature and that the members of the State Primary Canvassing Board had acted in violation of Illinois law by their refusal to certify him. The Court held that “mere violation of a state statute does not infringe the federal Constitution.” 321 U.S. at 11, 64 S.Ct. at 402. It went on to say that “a showing of purposeful discrimination” was necessary in order to raise a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. “It was not intended by the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Acts that all matters formerly within the exclusive cognizance of the states should become matters of national concern.”
The City makes no allegation that the Port Authority is purposefully misapplying Massachusetts law in order to discriminate against the City. Rather, the City attempts to have this court resolve the differing interpretations by the City and the Port Authority of the Massachusetts law of eminent domain. Such an allegation does not constitute a federal cause of action. The Massachusetts courts frequently make such interpretations, and it is that jurisdiction to which the City must turn in order to litigate this issue.
Affirmed.
. A municipality may assert a due process claim but not one attacking tlie laws of the state which created it. See Township of River Vale v. Town of Orangetown, 403 F.2d 684 (2d Cir. 1968). Whether a municipality can assert such a claim against a state agency which is allegedly acting in a lawless manner is an issue, crucial to the City’s case, which we do not reach.
. Although this court has not yet passed on the issue, there is authority to support the proposition that no federal jurisdiction exists under 28 U.S.C. § 1343 and 42 U.S.C. § 19S3 over claims for deprivation of property rights. Eisen v. Eastman, 421 F.2d 560 (2d Cir. 1969). The City disputes this authority and argues alternatively that interference with educational environment is more than a deprivation of property rights. We do not decide whether a § 1983 claim exists, nor do we reach the issue whether general federal question jurisdiction exists under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 in the absence of a statutorily authorized cause of action. See Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 409 F.2d 718 (2d Cir. 1969).
. The City does not contend that any other federal issues are involved.
. Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh, 207 U.S. 161, 178-179, 28 S.Ct. 40, 52 L.Ed. 151 (1907); Risty v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific R. Co., 270 U.S. 378, 390, 46 S.Ct. 236, 70 L.Ed. 641 (1926); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 575, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964). See generally Township of River Vale v. Town of Orangetown, 403 F.2d 684, 686 (2d Cir. 1968).
. Any involvement by the airlines in the alleged taking is derivative from their involvement with the Port Authority. Thus, jurisdictional questions aside, we will assume that if, but only if, the Port Authority violated the law, the airlines did likewise.
. 321 U.S. at 11, 64 S.Ct. at 403. Accord, Love v. Navarro, 262 F.Supp. 520 (C.D. Cal.1970); Sauls v. Hutto, 304 F.Supp. 124 (E.D.La.1969). See Johnson v. Hood, 430 F.2d 610 (5th Cir. 1970); Dorsey v. N.A.A.C.P., 408 F.2d 1022 (5th Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S 847, 90 S.Ct. 58, 24 L.Ed.2d 97 (1969); Charters v. Shaffer, 181 F.2d 764 (3d Cir. 1950). Cf. Delia v. Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County, 418 F.2d 205 (6th Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 886, 90 S.Ct. 174, 24 L.Ed.2d 161 (1969); Wessling v. Bennett, 410 F.2d 205 (8th Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 945, 90 S.Ct. 384, 24 L.Ed.2d 248 (1969); McCord v. Henderson, 383 F.2d 135 (6th Cir. 1967).
. E. g., Robbins v. Department of Public Works, 355 Mass. 328, 244 N.E.2d 577 (1969); Sacco v. Department of Public Works, 352 Mass. 670, 227 N.E.2d 478 (1967); Commonwealth v. Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, 349 Mass. 1, 206 N.E.2d 74 (1965); Commonwealth v. Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, 346 Mass. 250, 191 N.E.2d 481 (1963); City of Worcester v. Commonwealth, 345 Mass. 99, 185 N.E.2d 633 (1962).

Question: What is the total number of respondents in the case that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1