opinion: Theodore W. KHEEL and Raymond J. Scully, Intervening Claimants-Appellants, v. BETHLEHEM STEEL COMPANY, a corporation, Intervening Libelant-Appellee.
  No. 20044.
  United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.
  Dec. 28, 1965.
  John C. McLean, Alfred A. Hampson, Rives & Rodgers, Portland, Or., for appellants.
  William P. White, White, Sutherland & Gilbertson, Portland, Or., Daniel Hutton Brauck, Mendes & Mount, New York City, for appellee.
  Before MADDEN, Judge of the Court of Claims, and HAMLEY and MERRILL, Circuit Judges.
  HAMLEY, Circuit Judge:
  This is an appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon upholding the claim of Bethelehem Steel Company (Bethlehem) for a preferred maritime lien against the S.S. SOUTHAMPTON in the amount of \ $36,691. The court ordered payment to 'Bethlehem of that sum out of the funds in the registry of the court derived from the sale of the vessel.
  The appeal is brought by Theodore W. Kheel and Raymond J. Scully, trustees in proceedings under Chapter X of the Bankruptcy Act pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. One of the debtors in the Chapter X proceeding is Kulukundis Maritime Industries, Inc. (Kulukundis), the owner of the SOUTHAMPTON at the time she was libeled and sold in the Oregon proceedings. Appellants appeared in the Oregon proceedings to protest the interest of the general creditors of Kulukundis by contesting lien claims that were regarded as excessive or without merit, and by asserting a claim to any surplus remaining after payment of maritime liens.
  Appellants do not deny that Bethlehem originally acquired a maritime lien against the SOUTHAMPTON for the reasons and in the amount claimed. But they contend that payments subsequently made to Bethlehem on promissory notes covering several matured debts, including the debt involving the SOUTHAMPTON, should have been applied rata-bly by the court to all the included debts so as to reduce the lien on the SOUTHAMPTON pro rata. The payments made on the notes constituted 67.5% of the total indebtedness. Appellants therefore contend that the court should have allowed and ordered payment of Bethlehem’s claim only to the extent of 32.5% thereof, i. e., only for $11,924.57 instead of $36,691.00.
  This contention was not presented at the district court hearing, which was held on November 19,1963. It was made for the first time as one of three contentions advanced in a memorandum submitted to the district court on August 28, 1964, by counsel for Marine Midland. In the letter transmitting this memorandum it was stated that “Mr. Hampson [counsel for appellants] authorizes me to say that the Trustees also oppose this claim.” Counsel for Bethlehem submitted an answering memorandum on August 31, 1964, labeling Marine Midland’s “belated contention” as only a “ ‘cuttlefish’ defense.”
  Explaining why Marine Midland had raised this new question at that late date, counsel for Marine Midland wrote in his letter transmitting the August 28th memorandum:
  “This week is the first time I have carefully studied the documentary evidence in support of Bethlehem’s claim. In the early stages of this case, and when our first memorandum was written, there were so many claims that in some cases we could only give them superficial examination.”
  In the letter referred to above, Marine Midland in effect moved to reopen the proceeding to permit consideration of this new pro-rating question and the other questions discussed in the accompanying memorandum.
  The order under review, entered on October 30, 1964, contains no findings or conclusions bearing explicitly upon this new contention. It may be implied from this that the court denied the motion to reopen for consideration of the pro-rating question raised by Marine Midland. The latter party apparently accepted this disposition of the question for it raised no further objection in the district court and did not appeal.
  Up to that time appellant trustees had never raised the point, unless this is to be assumed from the statement in Marine Midland’s letter of August 28, 1964, that counsel for the trustees “also oppose this claim.” But this could hardly be regarded as joinder in this new pro-rating contention since appellants had always opposed the Bethlehem claim on other grounds.
  After the final order of October 30, 1964, authorizing payment of the Bethlehem claim had been entered, appellants filed written objections to the order and a request for findings, presenting the same pro-rating contention which was first advanced in Marine Midland’s memorandum of August 28, 1964. These objections and requests were disregarded by the district court, apparently on the theory that they came too late.
  Bethlehem asserts that, in view of the circumstances reviewed above, the prorating question which appellants raise on this appeal was not timely presented in the district court and on that ground alone we should affirm.
  We agree. As before stated, the district court’s disregard of the question, when first raised by another party long after the close of the trial, in effect represents denial of a motion to reopen. Trial court action on such a motion is not to be overturned except for an abuse of discretion. As this court recently said in California Airmotive Corporation v. Bass, 9 Cir., 354 F.2d 453:
  “It is important to litigants and the public alike that there be effective and expeditious disposition of disputes which reach the courts, and this consideration is remarkably important in matters of bankruptcy.”
  In Bass, under circumstances far less aggravated than those of the case now before us, we upheld the referee’s exercise of discretion in refusing to reopen a hearing.
  We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion, under the indicated circumstances, in refusing to reopen the trial for consideration of the new pro-rating argument.
  Affirmed.
  . As a matter of fact, at the November 19, 1963 hearing, no party before the court, although invited by the court to do so, raised any question concerning the amount of the Bethlehem claim. The only questions concerning that claim, raised at the hearing, had to do with its validity; laches and the problem of identifying the S.S. SOUTHAMPTON as the vessel on which Bethlehem had done the work were the sole subjects of inquiry.
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.