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:
D. C. FEDERATION OF CIVIC ASSOCIATIONS et al., Appellants, v. John A. VOLPE, Secretary of Transportation, et al.
No. 74-1974.
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
Oct. 6, 1975.
C. Francis Murphy, Corp. Counsel, Louis P. Robbins, Principal Asst. Corp. Counsel, Richard W. Barton and David P. Sutton, Asst. Corp. Counsels, Washington, D. C., were on the pleadings for appellee, District of Columbia.
Roberts B. Owen and Stuart C. Stock, Washington, D. C., were on the pleadings for appellants.
Before WRIGHT and LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judges.
ORDER
On consideration of the motion to dismiss or affirm, the motion for a supplemental briefing schedule, and the responses thereto, it is
Ordered by the Court that the case is remanded to the District Court for action as set out in the attached memorandum opinion, and it is
Further ordered by the Court that the motion to dismiss or affirm, as well as the motion for a supplemental briefing schedule, are denied as moot.
PER CURIAM:
This case arises in the aftermath of appellants’ successful efforts to stop construction of the Three Sisters Bridge. After this Court’s final remand of that litigation to the District Court, appellants moved in that court for an award of reasonable attorneys’ fees against the District of Columbia defendants. In support of that motion, they argued that fees could be awarded them either under the “common fund” and “substantial benefit to members of an ascertainable class” theories of Sprague v. Ticonic National Bank, 307 U.S. 161, 59 S.Ct. 777, 83 L.Ed. 1184 (1939) and Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U.S. 375, 90 S.Ct. 616, 24 L.Ed.2d 593 (1970), or under the “private attorney general” theory of Newman v. Biggie Park Enterprises, 390 U.S. 400, 88 S.Ct. 964, 19 L.Ed.2d 1263 (1968), and cases following it. However, on March 22, 1974, the District Court issued an Amended Final Judgment in the case, which, inter alia, denied the motion for attorneys’ fees without explanation.
Thirteen days later, on April 4, this Court, sitting en banc, decided Wilderness Society v. Morton, 161 U.S.App.D.C. 446, 495 F.2d 1026 (1974), reversed sub nom. Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 44 L.Ed.2d 141 (May 12, 1975). In Wilderness Society, this Court for the first time adopted the “private attorney general” theory and awarded attorneys’ fees on that basis. Thereafter, on April 19 — within the time for appeal from the Amended Final Judgment — appellants filed in the District Court a motion for reconsideration under Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(1), in which they urged that Wilderness Society required the District Court to modify its order and award them attorneys’ fees. They proceeded under Rule 60(b) — and allowed the time for appeal from the Amended Final Judgment to expire — on the theory that the District Judge, when this Court’s intervening decision was called to his attention, would correct his order and award attorneys’ fees, thus making resort to this Court unnecessary.
On June 21, the District Court, without explanation, denied the motion for reconsideration. Appellants took an appeal from that denial and proceeded to file briefs in this Court in which they relied exclusively on Wilderness Society and on the “private attorney general” theory approved therein. However, after briefing had been completed but before oral argument had been heard, the Supreme Court decided Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, supra, which reversed this Court’s decision in Wilderness Society and disapproved the award of attorneys’ fees under a “pri-' vate attorney general” theory.
Appellees now move for summary affirmance of the order denying reconsideration. They point out that, since appellants did not appeal from the Amended Final Judgment, but only from the order denying reconsideration, only those questions which were raised by the motion for reconsideration are presented by the instant appeal. Since appellants did not make their “common benefit” argument in the motion for reconsideration, but relied exclusively on the “private attorney general” theory approved in Wilderness Society, appellees argue that appellants have lost the right to raise the former theory before this Court. They then point out that the latter theory has been dealt a fatal blow by the Supreme Court’s Alyeska decision. Essentially, appellees’ argument seems to be that, although the District Judge’s decision denying reconsideration may have been error when it was made, that decision was rendered retroactively correct by Alyeska, and is error no longer. Their ultimate contention, of course, is that as of this time both of appellants’ theories on appeal have been foreclosed, and the order denying reconsideration must be summarily affirmed.
We cannot countenance such a result. In the first place, we think that appellants followed a logical and proper course in asking the District Judge to reconsider an order which was inconsistent with an intervening decision of this Court. At least two other circuits permit such intervening appellate decisions to be raised within the time for appeal by motion under Rule 60(b)(1), Schildhaus v. Moe, 335 F.2d 529 (2d Cir. 1964); Tarkington v. U. S. Lines, 222 F.2d 358 (2d Cir. 1955); Oliver v. Home Indemnity Co., 470 F.2d 329 (5th Cir. 1972), and Professor Moore has pointed out that such a rule “would infuse needed flexibility into our procedure, and allow the district court to correct judicial error that must otherwise be corrected on appeal.” 7 W. Moore, Federal Practice 1160.22(3) at 260-261 (1974). We agree. There is no question here of action by the losing party in the District Court after lapse of the time for appeal, and it is obviously sound administration for litigants to provide the District Courts with the opportunity to correct “errors” of this sort, and to spare this court unnecessary appeals.
In our view, the-District Judge abused his discretion in failing to respond at all when confronted with a new en banc decision of this Court on one of the major points raised in the motion for an award of attorneys’ fees. Sound judicial administration required him either to conform to the appellate precedent of this court, or at the very least, to vacate that portion of the Amended Final Judgment which denied attorneys’ fees, and hold the motion in abeyance pending the Supreme Court’s ultimate resolution of the issue. Had that been done, one final order disposing of both of appellants’ legal theories would have been entered, and that order, when appealed, would have brought both theories before this Court.
In the interest of justice, and in order to place appellants as nearly as possible in the position in which they would have been had the proper course been followed, we remand the case to the District Court with instructions that that portion of the Amended Final Judgment which denied the request for attorneys’ fees be vacated, and that a new order be entered ruling on the motion. This new order would very likely be a denial, in view of all subsequent decisions, but still there would be a new order that would be appealable to this court on the merits. In aid of our prospective appellate jurisdiction, we request of the District Judge a statement of his reasons for denying the motion insofar as it relied on the “substantial benefit [to] members of an ascertainable class” theory of Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U.S. 375, 90 S.Ct. 616, 24 L.Ed.2d 593 (1970).
So ordered.
. D. C. Federation of Civic Associations v. Volpe, 308 F.Supp. 423 (D.D.C.1970), rev’d and remanded, 140 U.S.App.D.C. 162, 434 F.2d 436, on remand, 316 F.Supp. 754 (D.D.C.1970), rev’d and remanded, 148 U.S.App.D.C. 207, 459 F.2d 1231 (1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 1030, 92 S.Ct. 1290, 31 L.Ed.2d 489 (1972).
. Rule 60(b)(1) provides in pertinent part:
On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or his legal representative from a final judgment, order, or proceeding for the following reasons: (I) mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect; .
. Daylo v. Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs, 163 U.S.App.D.C. 251, 254 n. 21, 501 F.2d 811, 815 n. 21 (1974); Pulliam v. Pulliam, 156 U.S.App.D.C. 25, 27, 478 F.2d 935, 937 (1973).
. We note that at least two circuits have decided not to permit such use to be made of Rule 60(b)(1). Silk v. Sandoval, 435 F.2d 1266 (1st Cir. 1971); Swam v. U. S., 327 F.2d 431 (7th Cir. 1964).

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