opinion: Jerrell DORSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. J.C. EDGE, Officer, Defendant-Appellee.
  No. 86-8706
  Non-Argument Calendar.
  United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.
  June 22, 1987.
  Wesley Williams, (Court appointed), Blairsville, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant.
  Phillip L. Hartley, Harben & Hartley Law Firm, Gainesville, Ga., for defendant-appellee.
  Before HILL, KRAVITCH and EDMONDSON, Circuit Judges.
  PER CURIAM:
  Jerrell Dorsey, a Georgia inmate, brings this appeal from the district court’s dismissal of his civil rights suit against Officer J.C. Edge and Warden Dale Glenn. Finding no abuse of discretion, we affirm the district court’s order.
  Dorsey filed this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Edge struck him in the head and mouth with a set of keys and then conspired with Glenn to conceal the truth about the assault. After determining that Dorsey's complaint was not frivolous, the district court appointed counsel and granted a 90 day extension of time for discovery. The pre-trial order listed Dorsey as the only witness in his own behalf; it further stated that if-the warden of the facility where Dorsey was incarcerated would not produce him for trial, Dorsey's evidence was to be submitted by deposition. Although the court requested that the Department of Corrections authorize Dorsey's transfer and that the county sheriff transport him to and from trial, the court advised the parties that it would not require the production of the plaintiff by writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum. When Dorsey did not appear at trial, his attorney indicated that he could not proceed without Dorsey's presence since he had not taken his client's deposition. At this point, the district court concluded that it had no alternative but to dismiss the case for want of prosecution.
  Normally, the dismissal of a prisoner civil rights case for failure to prosecute is disfavored because such a harsh sanction "runs counter to the policy of the law favoring the disposition of cases on the merits." Holt v. Pitts, 619 F.2d 558, 562 (6th Cir.1980). In this case, however, the district court appointed counsel and explicitly informed both Dorsey and his counsel in the pre-trial order that the plaintiff's evidence could be presented by deposition. The trial judge thus complied with this court's mandate that district courts should be "imaginative and innovative" in devising ways to afford a prisoner plaintiff his day in court. See Ballard v. Spradley, 557 F.2d 476, 480 (5th Cir.1977). A prisoner's right of access to the courts does not necessarily guarantee him the right to be physically present at the trial of his civil suit. Pollard v. White, 738 F.2d 1124, 1125 (11th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1111, 105 S.Ct. 791, 83 L.Ed.2d 785 (1985). Here the district judge took reasonable steps to insure that the plaintiff would be able to present his case, but Dorsey and his counsel failed to avail themselves of that opportunity. The district court therefore did not abuse its discretion in dismissing this action for want of prosecution.
  AFFIRMED.
instruction: 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.