opinion: Dorothy LEW, Appellant, v. James A. SUFFRIDGE et al., Appellees.
  No. 19974.
  United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
  Argued Oct. 18, 1966.
  Decided Nov. 8, 1966.
  Petition for Rehearing Denied Dec. 9, 1966.
  Mr. Walter E. Gillcrist, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Edward L. Carey, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.
  Mr. S. G. Lippman, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Tim Bornstein, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellees.
  Before Fahy, Danaher and Leventhal, Circuit Judges.
  FAHY, Circuit Judge.
  In the District Court Dorothy Lew, appellant, widow of Abraham Lew, sued appellees as trustees of the Pension Board of the Retail Clerks International Association Retirement Plan for Employees. The Association is a labor organization.
  Dorothy Lew’s husband died October 1, 1958. At the time of his death he was business manager and chief executive officer of the Retail Clerks Union, Local No. 21, of Newark, New Jersey, a Local of the International Association. His widow claimed that from the inception in 1949 of the Retirement Plan administered by appellees until his death Abraham Lew had been a participant in the Plan, had performed all necessary requirements for retirement eligibility under the Plan, and that upon his death, under the terms of the Plan she became eligible for a pension. Her application was denied by appellees, hence her suit against them.
  On the undisputed facts before the District Court appellant and appellees moved for summary judgment. The motion of appellees was granted on the ground that the action was barred by the three-years statute of limitations set forth in D.C. Code § 12-301 (Supp. V, 1966).
  Appellant contends not only that the action was brought within three years of appellee’s final denial of her claim, but also that she seeks equitable relief, with the consequence that laches rather than limitations is the criterion by which to judge a defense based on untimeliness of resort to the court. She goes on to urge, in the language of her brief in this court, “that the judgment of the District Court should be reversed and judgment in favor of Appellant, granting her status as a beneficiary of the Trust, should be entered. * * * ” Appellant thus submits to us on its merits a case submitted to the District Court on cross motions for summary judgment and involving no dispute of material facts. We accordingly decide the merits and in doing so affirm, without passing upon the question of limitations.
  We now explain the reasons for our affirmance.
  It is undisputed that the widow of an eligible participant in the Plan is herself eligible for a pension. The difficulty with appellant’s claim, however, is that the Plan requires employees to contribute to its funding. The Plan’s express purpose is “to provide each employee (who elects to and does participate in this Plan) with a retirement benefit. * * * ” Prior to July 1, 1955 a participating employee was to contribute two per cent of his monthly wages or salary to the pension fund; thereafter the amount was increased to four per cent. The collection provision states that the Local “shall deduct the contributions of each such employee from each remittance for services rendered by him. * * * ” Other provisions permit eligible but nonparticipating employees to participate nunc pro tunc, but each of these provisions requires the employee to pay the applicable percentage of the salary or wages he earned during the nonparticipating period for which he is to receive credit. Finally, the extensive refund provisions, available if the employee or his widow did not receive in pension his full contribution, demonstrate that the employee is to be a contributor to the fund.
  Abraham Lew did not comply with the contribution requirements of the Plan. He did not contribute any percentage of his salary or wages. And his employer, the New Jersey Local, did not deduct or withhold the required contribution from remittances for Lew’s services to the Local. The facts are the Local remitted each month from its own treasury to the International Association a sum equivalent to what Lew’s contribution should have been. These payments by the Local were without authorization either by its membership or its executive board. The amounts of these unauthorized disbursements by the Local were subsequently returned by appellees to the Local.
  It is clear that Abraham Lew did not establish his eligibility for retirement under the Plan. He made no contributions from his own wages or salary. Accordingly the decision of the trustees denying the widow’s claim must be upheld. Cf. Kosty v. Lewis, 115 U.S.App.D.C. 343, 346, 319 F.2d 744, 747, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 964, 84 S.Ct. 482, 11 L.Ed.2d 414. The widow can claim under the Plan only through her deceased husband. Her status falls with the failure of his own.
  Affirmed.
  . That we may affirm on the merits though the judgment of the District Court was based on the statute of limitations is supported by Farbenfabriken Bayer A.G. v. Sterling Drug, Inc., 307 F.2d 210, 212, n. 4 (3d Cir.). See, also, Ginsburg v. Black, 237 F.2d 790, 792 (7th Cir.); Springfield v. Carter, 175 F.2d 914, 917 (8th Cir.), and Kithcart v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 150 F.2d 997 (8th Cir.).
  . If there are reasons for or conditions under which the trustees might make provision for appellant from the Fund created under the Plan, or under which the International or the Local might provide for her, these are not for the court to set in motion. The question before us is whether appellant has a judicially enforceable right. The trustees acted well within their authority in deciding that the right to retirement under the Plan did not accrue to appellant’s husband and, therefore, that the right to a pension did not accrue to his widow.
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