opinion: ABINGTON HEIGHTS SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant, v. SPEEDSPACE CORPORATION, Appellee.
  No. 82-3199.
  United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
  Argued Sept. 29, 1982.
  Decided Nov. 17, 1982.
  Joseph P. Lenahan, (argued), Lenahan & Dempsey, Scranton, Pa., for appellant.
  Oldrich Foucek, III, Thomas C. Sadler, Jr., (argued), Butz, Hudders & Tallman, Allentown, Pa., for appellee.
  Before ALDISERT and HIGGINBOT-HAM, Circuit Judges and MEANOR, District Judge.
  Hon. H. Curtis Meanor, United States District Judge for the District of New Jersey, sitting by designation.
  OPINION OF THE COURT
  MEANOR, District Judge.
  On June 1, 1976 a fire occurred upon premises owned by the plaintiff-appellant. This diversity action was begun on June 27, 1979 naming appellee Speedspace Corporation, a California corporation, and Universal Manufacturing Corp. as defendants. The complaint sought damages arising out of the fire. It asserted that Speedspace had negligently designed and constructed the elementary school building in which the fire took place and that Universal had supplied defective fluorescent light ballasts.
  After some difficulty in effecting service upon it, Speedspace appeared and moved to dismiss upon the ground that as a California corporation having been dissolved on December 31, 1978, under the law of that state it was no longer amenable to suit. In May, 1980 the district court, relying upon Ray v. Alad Corp., 19 Cal.3d 22, 560 P.2d 3, 136 Cal.Rptr. 574 (1977) .held that, under the law of California, once a certificate of dissolution is filed, corporate existence ceases and there is no longer amenability to suit.
  On the heels of this ruling, the plaintiff moved for reconsideration, contending that it had just discovered that prior to dissolution Speedspace had been a subsidiary of Potlach Corporation and that the dissolution may have been a “merger” between Potlach and its subsidiary. Plaintiff did not move to add Potlach as a defendant. Reconsideration was denied, on the ground that imposition of liability upon Potlach as the parent or successor could not be accomplished by re-instituting the complaint against Speedspace, a “non-entity for the purpose of suit.”
  Plaintiff attempted to appeal the above rulings, but the appeal was dismissed on April 24,1981 for want of a final judgment, since the case remained open as to Universal. Subsequently, Universal settled and secured a dismissal, thus rendering final and appealable the previous entry of judgment in favor of Speedspace.
  We believe that the district court misread Ray v. Alad Corp. That case did not involve the question whether a dissolved corporation remained subject to suit. The defendant there, Alad II, had purchased the assets of the dissolved Alad I, without assuming any liabilities pertinent to the product liability claim advanced by plaintiff arising out of his use of a product manufactured by Alad I. Alad II simply continued the business of Alad I. Under these circumstances, the Supreme Court of California imposed successor liability upon Alad II with respect to product liability arising out of its predecessor’s manufacture. In that case the California court was not confronted with an attempt to sue the dissolved Alad I. The remarks of the court on which the district court relied did not go to the question whether, under California law, a dissolved corporation was susceptible to being sued. Those remarks, rather, were directed to the futility of collection after dissolution, liquidation and distribution. This futility, in turn, played a part in the policy decision to place product liability upon a successor corporation which had purchased only assets without assuming liabilities.
  Rule 17(b), F.R.Civ.P. provides in pertinent part: “The capacity of a corporation to sue or be sued shall be determined by the law under which it was organized.” Hence, we must turn to California law to determine whether Speedspace, though dissolved, remains subject to suit on account of an asserted pre-dissolution tort. The pertinent provisions of the applicable California statute are set forth below.
  In our judgment the result in the matter before us is controlled by North American Asbestos v. Superior Court, 128 Cal.App.3d 138, 179 Cal.Rptr. 889 (1982). There, personal injury claimants brought suit against a dissolved Illinois corporation. Illinois law provided that a dissolved corporation could be sued within two years of dissolution. The suits before the California Court of Appeal had been brought more than two years following the date of dissolution. The plaintiff, therefore, argued that California law should apply. Although the Court rejected the application of California law and applied Illinois law instead, in discussing section 2010 of the California Corporation Code it stated:
  It is clear that the California survival law does not apply to suits against dissolved foreign corporations. California Corporations Code section 2010 provides that ‘(a) corporation which is dissolved nevertheless continues to exist for the purpose of winding up its affairs, prosecuting and defending actions by or against it .... ” It also provides that “[n]o action or proceeding to which a corporation is a party abates by the dissolution of the corporation or by reason of proceedings for winding up and dissolution thereof.” Thus, there is no time limitation for suing a dissolved corporation for injuries arising out of its pre-dis-solution activities.
  If section 2010 applies to foreign corporations as well as to domestic corporations, then application of California law would permit these lawsuits to continue. However, section 2010 does not apply to a foreign corporation. North American Asbestos, 128 Cal.App.3d at 144, 179 Cal.Rptr. 889.
  In light of the language quoted above, we hold that under California law, Speedspace, as a dissolved corporation, is subject to suit arising out of its pre-dissolution activities, with the only time bar being that of an applicable general statute of limitations.
  The judgment under review will be reversed and the matter remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion. Costs taxed in favor of appellant.
  . Ray v. Alad Corp. is consistent with our decision imposing successor liability in Knapp v. North American Rockwell Corp., 506 F.2d 361 (3d Cir.1974).
  . Section 2010 of the California General Corporation Law provides:
  (a) A corporation which is dissolved nevertheless continues to exist for the purpose of winding up its affairs, prosecuting and defending actions by or against it and enabling it to collect and discharge obligations, dispose of and convey its property and collect and divide its assets, but not for the purpose of continuing business except so far as necessary for the winding up thereof.
  (b) No action or proceeding to which a corporation is a party abates by the dissolution of the corporation or by reason of proceedings for winding up and dissolution thereof.
  . To date, plaintiff has not attempted to amend to add Potlach Corporation as a defendant. If such a motion is made promptly upon remand, we direct that it be granted. Questions of successor liability, relation back and the statute of limitations can be resolved after Potlach is properly joined and served.
  At oral argument counsel for appellant, in response to a question from the court, stated that he was representing the interests of a subrogated fire insurance carrier. Attention is called to the real party in interest provisions of rule 17(a) F.R.Civ.P. See United States v. Aetna Surety Co., 338 U.S. 366, 70 S.Ct. 207, 94 L.Ed. 171 (1949) and Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 485 F.2d 78 (4th Cir.1973).
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.
  Your task is to identify the state of the first listed state or local government agency that is an appellant.
choices: not Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachussets Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New New New New North North Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode South South Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Wisconsin Wyoming Virgin Puerto District Guam not Panama