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 "fiduciaries". 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:
MOMAND v. PARAMOUNT PUBLIX CORPORATION et al.
No. 1477.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.
Feb. 26, 1937.
Rehearing Denied April 8, 1937.
George S. Ryan (Frank S. Field, of Oklahoma City, Okl., on the brief), for appellant.
Frank Wells, of Oklahoma City, Okl. (D. I. Johnston, of Oklahoma City, Okl., on the brief), for appellees except Regal Theatres, Inc.
Malcolm W. McKenzie, of Oklahoma City, Okl. (J. H. Everest, of Oklahoma City, Old., on the brief), for appellee Regal Theatres, Inc.
Before LEWIS, PHILLIPS, and BRATTON, Circuit Judges.
PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge.
Appellant brought this action at law against appellees to recover treble damages under IS U.S.C.A. § IS, 38 Stat. 731.
The record sets forth a purported motion interposed by appellees to strike certain portions of the amended petition and to require appellant tO' make certain portions thereof more definite and certain and purported rulings by the trial court on such motion. Neither the motion nor the rulings are incorporated in a bill of exceptions.
The appeal is from the following order:
“Now on the 9th day of July, the plaintiff having announced in open court that the order of February 3, 1936, entered in this cause would not be complied with, and no amended petition filed, it is the opinion that this cause should be dismissed.
“It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed, that this action be dismissed, and exceptions allowed the plaintiff.”
The assignments of error are all predicated on the purported rulings on the motion.
Motions to strike and motions to make more definite and certain and rulings thereon are not part of the record proper and may be brought upon the record only by a bill of exceptions duly authenticated and filed. Dietz v. Lymer (C.C.A.8) 61 F. 792, 794; Ghost v. United States (C.C.A.8) 168 F. 841; Chicago Great Western R. Co. v. Le Valley (C.C.A.8) 233 F. 384; Vance v. Chapman (C.C.A.8) 23 F.(2d) 914; Flanagan v. Benson (C.C.A.8) 37 F.(2d) 69.
In Deitz v. Lymer, supra, the court said:
“The defendant below has assigned for error the action of the circuit court in sustaining the several motions to make the answer more certain, and to strike out parts of the answer because they were too indefinite. * * * These assignments of error cannot be noticed in this court, for the reason that they relate to matters in which the action of the trial court was purely discretionary. * * * Moreover, motions of this character form no part of the record, unless they are made such by a bill of exceptions; and no bill of exceptions was signed or allowed, so far as the record shows, either when the orders in question were made or afterwards.”
What is record proper and what may be brought upon the record only by a bill of exceptions is controlled by the statutes of the United States and, where they are silent, by the common law and the practice prevailing in the United States courts and not by the rules and practice in the state courts. Ghost v. U. S., supra; Chateaugay Ore & Iron Co., Petitioner, 128 U.S. 544, 553, 9 S.Ct. 150, 32 L.Ed. 508; St. Clair v. United States, 154 U.S. 134, 153, 14 S.Ct. 1002, 38 L.Ed. 936; Camp v. Gress, 250 U.S. 308, 318, 39 S.Ct. 478, 482, 63 L.Ed. 997.
In Camp v. Gress, supra, the court said:
“The Conformity Act [28 U.S.C.A. § 724] by its express terms refers only to proceedings in District (and formerly Circuit) Courts and has no application to appellate proceedings either in this court or in the Circuit Court of Appeals. Such proceedings are governed entirely by the acts of Congress, the common law, and the ancient English statutes.”
The decisions of the state courts are therefore helpful only as they may reflect the practice under the statute of 13 Edward I, Chap. 31, the English statute providing for a bill of exceptions and broadening the scope of review on writ of error. The decisions of the state courts generally are to the effect that such motions may he brought upon the record only by bill of exceptions.
It follows that the matters upon which error are assigned are not before us and may not be considered.
Since it appears that the dismissal was because of failure to comply with the court’s order and was not based on matters going to the merits, the dismissal should have been without prejudice. Langley v. Hamilton, 127 Okl. 35, 259 P. 575.
The order is reversed with instructions to vacate the order and enter an order dismissing the amended petition without prejudice. Each party will pay his own costs.
Ewing v. Vernon County, 216 Mo. 681, 116 S.W. 518; Birmingham v. Warren (Mo.Sup.) 34 S.W.(2d) 115; Shuey v. Bunney, 4 Cal.App.(2d) 408, 40 P.(2d) 859; Arkansas Central R. Co. v. State, 72 Ark. 250, 79 S.W. 773; Town of Scott v. Artman, 237 Ill. 394, 86 N.E. 595; Pittsburgh, C., C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Indiana Horseshoe Co., 154 Ind. 322, 56 N.E. 766; Masoner v. Bell, 20 Okl. 618, 95 P. 239, 18 L.R.A.(N.S.) 106; Forbes v. Rogers, 143 Ala. 208, 38 So. 843; De Pedrorena v. Hotchkiss, 95 Cal. 636, 30 P. 787; Whitney v. Teichfuss, 11 Colo. 555, 10 P. 507; Mann v. Brown, 263 Ill. 394, 105 N.E. 328; Interstate Ry. Co. v. Missouri River & C. R. Co., 251 Mo. 707, 158 S.W. 349; Continental Casualty Co. v. Ogburn, 186 Ala. 396, 64 So. 619; Barber v. Mulford, 117 Cal. 356, 49 P. 206; Brink v. Posey, 11 Colo. 521, 10 P. 467.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "fiduciaries"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1