opinion: Lillie T. CARQUEVILLE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Arthur S. FLEMMING, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Defendant-Appellee.
  No. 12464.
  United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.
  Feb. 19, 1959.
  Richard A. Walsh, Chicago, Ill., McCracken & Walsh, Chicago, Ill., of counsel, for appellant.
  Robert Tieken, U. S. Atty., Charles R. Purcell, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Chicago, Ill., John Peter Lulinski, Asst. U. S. Atty., Chicago, Ill., of counsel, for appellee.
  Before DUFFY, Chief Judge, and SCHNACKENBERG and HASTINGS, Circuit Judges.
  DUFFY, Chief Judge.
  Plaintiff, as surviving widow of William L. Carqueville, filed an application for benefits under the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq. This application was disallowed on September 6, 1956 by the Bureau of Old Age and Survivors Insurance, and plaintiff thereafter requested a hearing before a Referee. Such hearing was held on February 19 and March 27, 1957. Plaintiff was represented by counsel. The Referee recommended that the claim be disallowed. The Departmental Appeals Council declined plaintiff’s request for a review on July 31, 1957, and such action became the final action of the Secretary. This proceeding was brought in the District Court to reverse the Secretary’s decision. Both sides moved for summary judgment. The trial court granted defendant’s motion. This appeal followed.
  William C. Carqueville was a commercial artist. He reached the age of 65 years on June 16, 1935. He died on August 14, 1946. For five or six years prior to 1939 he had prepared advertising art work for display on billboards of the General Outdoor Advertising Company (hereinafter called “General Outdoor”). He originated his own ideas; he did his work at home and was paid two, three or four hundred dollars for each drawing submitted to and accepted by General Outdoor. During this period he earned from $125 to $175 a week.
  In 1939 Carqueville contracted Parkinson's Disease as a result of which he could not continue his art work. In her application for benefits, plaintiff stated that decedent “rendered no services for the company for approximately seven years prior to his death.” The record does show that occasionally he went down to the offices of General Outdoor and conferred with Mr. Robbins, the then president, with whom he was on very friendly terms. There was also some indication in the record that on some occasions he had discussions with and advised some of the younger artists.
  Commencing March 15, 1939, and continuing until decedent’s death, General Outdoor paid decedent the sum of $86.90 on the 15th day and on the last day of each month. President Robbins was the person who authorized that such payments be made. Unfortunately, Robbins died before the time of the hearing, and the actual reason for such payments remains somewhat of a mystery. It is clear, however, that General Outdoor claimed as income tax deductions the amounts which were paid to Carqueville.
  The payments were shown on the payroll record cards, and were made by payroll cheeks. From and after January 15, 1943, these payments were subject to deductions of various amounts. On General Outdoor’s records they were entered as “Deductions — Un. Ins.” However, the record cards showed no entries in columns headed “Positions”, “Time Worked” or “Deductions — O A B.” Throughout this period, decedent had no Social Security account number and no posting of wages earned by decedent were contained in the records of the Social Security Administration. There is no showing that Carqueville ever applied for a Social Security account number.
  On this appeal, plaintiff contends that William L. Carqueville was an employee of General Outdoor from March 15, 1939 to August 12, 1946, and that the payments made to him during that period by General Outdoor constituted “wages” within the meaning of Sec. 209, Social Security Act. Plaintiff also points out certain errors made by the Referee such as his statement that all the entries that appeared on the payroll card records were the same. The fact is that there were some differences.
  The plaintiff had the burden of proof before the Referee to establish that the required conditions for eligibility had been met. She also had to overcome the effect of the absence of any entry of wages earned by the decedent in the record of the Social Security Administration. Sec. 205(c) (3) of the Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 405(c) (3), makes such records competent evidence on the question of whether wages were paid. Where a period of more than three years, three months and fifteen days have elapsed subsequent to the year in which the wages were allegedly paid, as in the case at bar, the absence of any entry in the records of the Social Security Administration is presumptive evidence that no wages were in fact paid. 42 U.S.C.A. § 405(c)(4)(b).
  The jurisdiction of the District Court was exercised by authority of Sec. 205(g) of the Social Security Act as amended. 42 U.S.C.A. § 405(g). This section provides: “The findings of the Secretary as to any fact, if supported by substantial evidence, shall be conclusive * * * ” Therefore, the function of the District Court was to review the record to determine whether it contained substantial evidence to support the administrative decision. Neither we nor the District Court have the right to make our own appraisal of the evidence. Rosewall v. Folsom, 7 Cir., 239 F.2d 724, 728.
  The finality accorded by Sec. 205(g) of the Act to the administrative findings extends as well to the inferences from the evidence made by the Secretary if a substantial basis for them appears in the record. Rosewall v. Folsom, 7 Cir., 239 F.2d 724, 728; United States v. LaLone, 9 Cir., 152 F.2d 43, 44.
  We conclude that the record which was before the District Court did contain substantial evidence to support the Referee’s findings. The plaintiff failed to sustain the burden of proof which was upon her. It follows the District Court was correct in entering judgment affirming the final decision of the Referee.
  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.