opinion: BROOMFIELD et al. v. TEXAS GENERAL INDEMNITY CO.
  No. 14015.
  United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.
  Feb. 13, 1953.
  Ernest L. Sample, Adams, Browne & Sample, Beaumont, Tex., for appellant.
  Howell Cobb, Fountain, Cox & Gaines, Houston, Tex., for appellee.
  Before HOLMES, RUSSELL, and STRUM, Circuit Judges.
  HOLMES, Circuit Judge
  This action was instituted by appellants, widow and children of the deceased, Morris L. Broomfield, against the insurer of his employer under the Texas Workmen’s Compensation Law, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.Stat., Art. 8306 et seq. The case was tried without a jury, and was dismissed on the appellee’s motion when the plaintiffs rested, no witnesses having been introduced by the defendant. The court did not find the facts specially and state separately its conclusions of law, as required by rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S. C.A.
  The deceased had been employed by Kirby Lumber Company for a period of thirty-six years, and was performing the duties of a sand-drier at the time of the alleged injury (in March, 1950), which occurred while he was tearing down a building in the course of his employment. He allegedly reached up to secure a board; and, in so doing, injured his heart, which caused the fatal injury or aggravated preexisting ailments, resulting in his death. His widow testified that he had not complained of feeling ill before he left home on the morning of the alleged injury, and that he appeared to be in sound health; that, on his return home from, his work that day, he sat on the side of his bed and held his hand to his chest, exclaiming that he had been injured during his work that morning; that he was hurting and in pain; and that he had strained his heart when reaching up to grasp a board; that he attempted to return to work three days later; but, because of shortness of breath and other symptoms, he was unable to resume his employment prior to his death on August 18, 1950. It further appeared that he was the only employee assigned to the task of dismantling the shack, and there was no eyewitness to the accident.
  The court properly excluded the widow’s testimony as to what the deceased told her about his having strained his heart. Dr. Moffat, the company’s doctor, and the only physician who examined the deceased, testified that Broomfield reported to him that he strained his heart when he pulled down a hoard, adding that he knew of no reason for doubting the deceased’s veracity. In his surgeon’s report, which by its own language required a full description of the nature of the injury, the employee’s condition was diagnosed as a strained heart. The facts as to the injury were also-related by the deceased to the company’s nurse and cashier, and were recorded in the company’s accident records. From the evidence, the deceased apparently had been ill with heart trouble three or four months prior to the accident, but was issued a slip by the company’s doctor authorizing his return to work. After the employee’s death, the doctor’s report of the accident was altered so that “no” was superimposed over the original “yes”, in answering the question as to whether the accident was the sole cause of the deceased’s injury. Dr. Moffat admitted that appellee’s insurance adjuster persuaded him to make the alteration. Such action in procuring an alteration of the doctor’s original report amounted to an attempted suppression or alteration of evidence of such a nature as to be construed as a recognition of the injury by the appellee. See McEntire v. Baygent, Tex.Civ.App., 229 S.W.2d 866, 20 A.L.R.2d 300. Omnia praesumuntur contra spoliatorem. Broom’s Legal Maxims, 938; Bouvier’s Law Dictionary and cases therein cited, as follows: 1 Greenleaf on Evidence, Sec. 37; 5 Allen 172; 31 L.R.A. 581; 45 Pac.Rep. 1073.
  The appellee admitted that the deceased reported the injury described in the employer’s first report of injury, dated 4/22/50, filed with the defendant and the Industrial Accident Board of Texas; but, under Article 8309(5) of the Texas Civil Statutes, such report is not admissible to prove any question in dispute. The testimony of the company’s doctor, and the record made by him, furnished sufficient medical evidence to warrant a finding that death resulted from the alleged injury if he was injured as claimed. Brodtmann v. Zurich General Accident &. Liability Ins. Co., 5 Cir., 90 F.2d 1; Carter v. Travelers Ins. Co., 132 Tex. 288, 120 S.W.2d 581.
  An industrial ^accidental injury may be proved by circumstantial evidence; it is not always necessary to have an eyewitness other than the deceased (whose voice is silenced by death as the result of such injury). When all the hearsay evidence and self-serving declarations in the record are excluded, there might not be sufficient evidence to sustain a finding for the plaintiffs without the maxim above quoted, that all things are presumed against the wrongdoer; but, with the aid of this presumption and upon the authority of the Brodtmann case, supra, we think the circumstantial evidence made a prima facie case for the plaintiff, which entitled them to a consideration of the issues by a jury or other fact-finding tribunal. We think the circumstantial evidence, aided by the presumption, might fairly and reasonably be deemed to exclude any explanation of the injury and death other than that the deceased strained his heart or aggravated its already weakened condition when he was tearing down the house in the course of his employment.
  After 36 years of service, this employee left for his work in apparent good health according to his wife, and well enough to work according to the employer’s doctor. The company’s payroll should show exactly how long he worked that morning, tearing down a house; but his wife testified that he was writhing in pain, and claiming to have strained his heart, when she saw him after his return. He reported the injury to his employer, as he was legally required to do; and this is competent evidence, not of the fact of injury, but of the fact that he reported it. He made certain statements to his doctor, to his nurse, and to other attendants, which were recorded in the hospital records. It is reasonable to assume that the insurance adjuster had questioned him and investigated his claim, which was compromised in the lifetime of the employee. The fact of the compromise is not evidence of the company’s liability, but it throws light on what was in the adjuster’s mind when he persuaded the doctor to alter his records and opinion as to the-cause of death. In a case of circumstantial evidence, trifles may be given weight in connection with the other facts in evidence, and if we indulge every presumption against the spoliator, it is easy to presume that this adjuster had investigated the evidence, which was accessible to him but not to the heirs of the deceased, and that he deemed it necessary to change or suppress the doctor’s opinion as to the cause of this man’s death, because the man was injured in the course of his employment. When we recall how much is presumed under statutory presumptions creating prima facie liability, we are afforded some idea of the scope and effect of a maxim that has survived in the jurisprudence of the civil law and of the common law for over a thousand years.
  The judgment appealed from is reversed, and the cause remanded to the district court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
  Reversed and remanded.
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.