Task: songer_genresp1

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.
When coding the detailed nature of participants, use your personal knowledge about the participants, if you are completely confident of the accuracy of your knowledge, even if the specific information is not in the opinion. For example, if "IBM" is listed as the appellant it could be classified as "clearly national or international in scope" even if the opinion did not indicate the scope of the business. 
Your task is to determine the nature of the first listed respondent.

PER CURIAM.
Appellant Aleja Ramirez applied for disability benefits under 42 U.S.C. § 423, claiming that asthma and arthritis made it impossible for her to work. The Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare found that she had failed to establish a disability before 1963, when she last met the special earnings requirements of § 423, and denied the application. The district court affirmed, and this appeal followed.
Appellant’s claim of disability was supported only by a report by a Dr. Jose Villeneuve and by the testimony at the administrative hearing of appellant and her sister. Appellant testified at the hearing that Dr. Villeneuve had treated her since 1959, but the report indicated that he first examined her on June 18, 1969. After the hearing, the administrative law judge contacted Dr. Villeneuve to resolve the conflict. The doctor stated that while he might have seen appellant prior to 1969, he had no available record so indicating.
We agree with the district court that the Secretary’s decision is supported by substantial evidence. It is uncontested that appellant did not meet the earnings requirement of 42 U.S.C. § 423(a)(1), (c)(1)(B) after 1963, and yet her only medical evidence related to a period beginning in 1969. That she and her sister testified to earlier disability is not enough. Her burden was to show an impairment that was “medically determinable,” id. at § 423(d)(1)(A), (d)(3); see Reyes Robles v. Finch, 409 F.2d 84, 86 (1st Cir. 1969); and while we do not say that there may never be a case where a plaintiff can satisfy that burden without medical evidence, certainly such a case would be rare. In a case like this, calling for proof of disability some years ago as a result of such common ailments as asthma and arthritis, the secretary could insist that claimant produce “adequate medical evidence.” Stille v. Weinberger, 499 F.2d 244, 247 (6th Cir. 1974). Here, there was no medical evidence as to the period in which the earnings requirement was met, despite the ample opportunity afforded appellant to present such evidence and the efforts of the administrative law judge to secure it independently.
Appellant urges that she was prejudiced by lack of assistance of counsel at the administrative hearing. However, while appellant had a right to have retained counsel present at the hearing, the record clearly shows that she waived that right. Informed of the right to counsel by letter (in Spanish) before the hearing, she responded in writing that she did not wish to be represented. And asked at the hearing if she still wished to represent herself, she said that she did. There is nothing to indicate that appellant was in any way misled, or that her hearing was in any way unfair. See Steimer v. Gardner, 395 F.2d 197, 198-99 (9th Cir. 1968).
Affirmed.

Question: What is the nature of the first listed respondent?
A. private business (including criminal enterprises)
B. private organization or association
C. federal government (including DC)
D. sub-state government (e.g., county, local, special district)
E. state government (includes territories & commonwealths)
F. government - level not ascertained
G. natural person (excludes persons named in their official capacity or who appear because of a role in a private organization)
H. miscellaneous
I. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: C