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.

Opinion:
William R. BALLOU et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, Defendant, Appellee.
No. 7039.
United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.
April 22, 1968.
Albert L. Goldman, Boston, Mass., with whom Angoff, Goldman, Manning & Pyle, Boston, Mass., was on brief, for appellants.
Laurence S. Fordham, Boston, Mass., with whom John G. S. Flym, and Foley, Hoag & Eliot, Mark F. Clark, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for appellee.
Before ALDRICH, Chief Judge, Mc-ENTEE and COFFIN, Circuit Judges.
McENTEE, Circuit Judge.
The issue presented in this ease is whether class attendance and study exercises required of apprentices are principal activities as that term is used in section 4 of the Portal-to-Portal Act, 29 U.S.C. § 254.
Plaintiffs filed a complaint against their employer, General Electric Company, to recover payment of minimum and overtime wages for time spent as apprentices in required class attendance and study exercises. This time, which alone is in issue here, was in addition to at least forty hours a week spent in regular and customary work for apprentices at the General Electric plant.
Defendant moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, Fed.R. Civ.P. 12(b), and the district court allowed this motion. Plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration asserted that the complaint did state a cause of action, and that in any event they should be granted leave to amend. The denial of this motion gave rise to the instant appeal.
The order of the district court in allowing the motion to dismiss was somewhat cryptic and defendant argues that it should be affirmed on either of two theories, one relating to form, the other going to the merits. First, the Portal-to-Portal Act distinguishes between activities that are principal on the one hand and those that are preliminary or postliminary on the other. Only activities that are principal give rise to work time under the Act. Defendant argues that plaintiffs have not alleged that the time devoted to class and study is a principal activity and that, indeed, by contrasting this time with the “regular and customary” work of apprentices plaintiffs somewhat suggest the opposite. According to this theory the complaint was properly dismissed as a matter of pleading; further, leave to amend was appropriately denied since no copy of a proposed amendment was ever submitted. In the alternative, defendant contends that the court properly granted the motion to dismiss on the merits, since plaintiffs are seeking compensation for activities that are postliminary rather than principal within the meaning of the Portal-to-Portal Act.
We are unable to accept the theory that the district court should have dismissed or did dismiss the complaint merely as a technical matter of pleading. “In appraising the sufficiency of the complaint, we follow, of course, the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). We think that in this case quite enough was alleged to give defendant fair notice of the basis of plaintiffs’ claim. See 1A Barron and Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure 52-56 (Wright ed. 1960). In any event, it would have been necessary to give plaintiffs an opportunity to amend if this were merely a matter of deficient pleadings. Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a). In Nagler v. Admiral Corp., 248 F.2d 319, 322 (2d Cir. 1957), Judge Clark indicated why “outright dismissal for reasons not going to the merits is viewed with disfavor in federal courts.” See 2A Moore’s Federal Practice 1775-76 (2d ed. 1967):
“But such allegation [of contract or custom providing for payment] would not seem to be required if the suit is for compensation for what the pleader claims and describes as an integral part of the employee’s principal activities, i. e., non-portal-to-portal activity. Again amendment should be allowed to furnish required allegations, if they can be supplied in good faith by the pleader.”
Defendant, however, urges that whatever the usual rule, in this case dismissal with prejudice is condign because plaintiffs did not submit a copy of any proposed amendment to their pleading. The difficulty with this is that plaintiffs were never informed that their complaint was improperly drawn. Defendant’s objections on this score represented only an alternate theory of defense and as already indicated there is no reason to believe that it was accepted by the court. See Bonanno v. Thomas, 309 F.2d 320 (9th Cir. 1962) and Griffin v. Locke, 286 F.2d 514 (9th Cir. 1961), for the suggestion that if a complaint is dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, other than on the merits, not only should leave to amend be granted but for their guidance in amending, plaintiffs should also be informed of the reason. Cf. Topping v. Fry, 147 F.2d 715 (7th Cir. 1945). We agree that the court should have explained its action.
It is necessary, therefore, to consider the merits of the complaint. The question of what activities are principal and what are postliminary must be viewed in the light of two companion cases decided by the Supreme Court. Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247, 76 S.Ct. 330, 100 L.Ed. 267 (1956) and Mitchell v. King Packing Co., 350 U.S. 260, 76 S.Ct. 337, 100 L.Ed. 282 (1956). In these cases the Court said that an activity is principal if it is “an integral and indispensable part of the principal activity of the employment.” Steiner, supra, 350 U.S. at 256, 76 S.Ct. at 335. In that case employees changed their clothes and took showers in a plant where caustic and toxic materials were used extensively. The Court concluded that although shower and change time would not ordinarily be indispensable to a principal activity, it was indispensable in the peculiar circumstances of this case. Among other considerations the Court was influenced by the fact that Tennessee law required employers in the industry to supply facilities for showering and changing. Steiner, supra at 250, 76 S.Ct. 330. Similarly in King Packing, where knifemen in a meat-packing plant sharpened their knives out of scheduled work hours, the Court concluded that this was indispensable to the principal activity.
The circumstances in the present case are quite different. An apprenticeship program not supplemented by evening instruction does not seem fairly comparable to knifemen without sharpened knives. Still, in this area of controversy and complexity, we are reluctant to decide on a barren record whether the activities here are principal or post-liminary. Also, we think it would be •improvident to speak more fully on the issues presented here until the district court decides this point on the basis of a more complete record. Accordingly, we remand for a determination of this issue.
Judgment will be entered vacating the judgment of the district court and remanding the case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
. See remarks of Senator Cooper, 93 Cong. Rec. 2297-2298 cited in Steiner v. Mitchell, supra at 258, 76 S.Ct. at 337, especially : “In accordance with our intention as to the definition of ‘principal activity,’ if the employee could not perform his activity without putting on certain clothes, then the time used in changing into those clothes would be compensable as part of his principal activity. On the other hand, if changing clothes were merely a convenience to the employee and not directly related to the specific work, it would not be considered a part of his principal activity, and it follows that such time would not be compensable.”
. Plaintiffs also call to our attention Wirtz v. Healey, 227 F.Supp. 123 (W.D.Ill.1964) and Chepard v. May, 71 F.Supp. 389 (S.D.N.Y.1947). In Healey, however, the school time was only one of a multitude of facts considered and no details were provided as to when it was given or its relationship tb the employees’ basic activities. We cannot regard this case as persuasive authority. Chepard was a prePortal-to-Portal Act case.
.- See, for example, 29 C.P.R. § 521.3 which discusses standards of apprenticeship. Subsection (i) provides for “ [r] elated instruction, if available.” This is a rather bland formula if it is intended to describe something indispensable and integral to the principal activity.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 0