Cite as: 519 U. S. 248 (1997)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
deed, a different approach would make the meaning we ascribe to the general rule turn on the specifics of the case that first raises the issue. For good reason, that is not our practice. Because interpreting Rule 15(a) to make the Director a party would sometimes extend the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals, and because Rule 1(b) requires that the Rule be construed to avoid that result, the Rule should not be given the meaning that today's opinion accords it.
Invoking Rule 15(a) (and, of course, ignoring the identity of the body that issued the order) is the only imaginable basis for concluding that the Director is always a proper respondent in the courts of appeals, regardless of the outcome below. There is, however, a respectable argument in support of his respondent status when he participates before the Board and prevails. That parties in whose favor the judgment under review runs are ordinarily proper respondents or appellees in the courts of appeals is so obvious that the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure—which, contrary to the Court's belief, purport to prescribe which parties must be named, not who is a party—do not bother to provide for the naming of such individuals. (That is to say, there is no analogue to Rule 15(a) for them.)
But the Director—even assuming he is entitled to participate as a party before the Board, compare 20 CFR § 802.201(a)(1) (1996) (allowing participation) with Newport News, supra, at 125-126 ("[T]he [LHWCA] does not by its terms . . . grant [the Director] authority to prosecute appeals to the Board")—is not an ordinary prevailing party. An ordinary party in that position would, if he had lost below, have the right to prosecute an appeal. The Director, in contrast, has no such power. Newport News, supra. This inability to appeal reflects the limited character of the interests of the Director affected by the Board's judgment, which include neither his exposure to financial or other liability, nor nullification of one of his own orders, but only legal or policy dis-
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