Task: songer_appnatpr

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 "natural persons". 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.

BY THE COURT:
American Freight System, Inc. (AFS) filed an application with the ICC seeking the removal of certain restrictions from three of its certificates of convenience and necessity. Among the restrictions on each certificate was one prohibiting AFS from transporting “commodities in bulk.” Steere Tank Lines, Inc. filed a protest, claiming inter alia that AFS was not “fit, willing, and able” to transport “commodities in bulk,” and that ICC regulations promulgated to implement the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 had improperly relieved AFS of showing that it was “fit, willing, and able” to provide bulk service. The ICC nevertheless granted AFS’s application. Steere brought this petition for review.
Less than two weeks after Steere filed this petition, the ICC granted an application by AFS for an entirely new certificate on the condition that AFS cancel all of its outstanding certificates, including the three at issue in this case. The new certificate grants AFS broad authority to transport “general commodities . . . between points in the United States,” and thus obviates any need for AFS to hold numerous certificates authorizing service in different areas.
The ICC and the United States move for dismissal, arguing that this petition is now moot. Even if we agree with Steere’s argument that the restrictions were improperly removed, the new certificate will still give AFS authority to transport bulk commodities in the areas covered by the cancelled certificates. A decision in this case simply “cannot affect the rights of [the] litigants in the case before [us].” North Carolina v. Rice, 404 U.S. 244, 246, 92 S.Ct. 402, 404, 30 L.Ed.2d 413 (1971).
Steere’s primary response to the ICC’s argument is that the agency’s action in the proceeding below is clearly contrary to our recent decision in American Trucking Ass’ns, Inc. v. ICC, 659 F.2d 452, 465 (5th Cir. 1981), in which we invalidated the agency’s rules authorizing the removal of restrictions on bulk service without a showing that the applicant is “fit, willing, and able” to provide bulk service. Even if this is so, it is not a reason for us to issue an advisory opinion. Moreover, AFS was determined to be “fit, willing, and able” to provide bulk service in the separate proceedings on its new certificate application, a decision which is not now before us.
Steere also argues that this case is not moot because the issues are “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U.S. 498, 515, 31 S.Ct. 279, 283, 55 L.Ed. 310 (1911). While the issues may well be “capable of repetition,” we do not see how they will evade review. The effects of an ICC order removing restrictions from a certificate are not inherently transitory; to the contrary, the effects are of potentially infinite duration. See 49 U.S.C. § 10925(a) (a certificate “remains in effect” unless revoked, suspended, or amended by the ICC); cf. Southern Pacific, 219 U.S. at 514-15, 31 S.Ct. at 283 (ICC’s order expired by its own terms within two years). Steere itself has a separate petition pending béfore this court in which it claims that the ICC applied its invalidated regulations in granting a removal restriction application. Moreover, the question whether AFS is actually “fit, willing, and able” to transport bulk commodities is subject to judicial review in the proceeding granting AFS a new certificate.
Steere suggests “that the filing of duplicitous applications and the wholesale granting of duplicating authority is designed to thwart any effective opposition to any new operation.” Were there any indication in the record before us that AFS’s application for a new certificate was designed to defeat this court’s jurisdiction, it would be cause for concern. AFS’s application for the new certificate, however, was filed well before Steere’s petition for review. Moreover, that application appears to have had nothing but a legitimate business purpose — to obtain one certificate that grants AFS broad authority to transport general commodities and that replaces AFS’s many restricted certificates.
All interested parties had an opportunity to protest and seek judicial review of AFS’s application for the new certificate. We cannot review that separate proceeding in this case.
The motion to DISMISS is GRANTED.
. Steere claims that the agency is continuing to grant both removal restriction and new certificate applications without a showing that the applicant is “fit, willing, and able,” in disregard of our decision in American Trucking, 659 F.2d at 464, 472-73. The question of American Truckings application to the various proceedings of which Steere complains, however, is properly left to the time when those proceedings are reviewed by this court.
. AFS’s application for the new certificate was published in the Federal Register. The application was opposed by 21 motor carriers, although Steere did not join in that protest. Seven of those protestants took an administrative appeal, which was unsuccessful. The submissions in this case do not reveal whether any of the protestants has sought review in the court of appeals.
. Indeed, since the application for the new certificate was assigned Sub-No. 34 of ICC Docket No. MC-144678, and the application for removal of restrictions was assigned Sub-No. 35, it appears that AFS applied for the new certificate before it applied for the restriction removals at issue in this case.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.
Answer:

Answer: 0