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.

PER CURIAM.
Appellant was a classified civil service employee of the Department of the Navy who was removed from her position following extensive administrative hearings. Her complaint in the District Court was dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.
The record on this appeal shows that after disciplinary action had been taken in repeated instances over a period of some eighteen months, appellant, on January 6, 1953, wrote a letter to her superiors, and a second letter on January 24, 1953, in both of which she complained of treatment accorded her. Because the first letter was temporarily lost or misfiled, the second letter was made necessary, she says, and constitutes a “grievance” within Navy Regulations. With great earnestness and obvious fidelity to appellant’s cause, her counsel has pressed us to reverse the District Court’s judgment on the ground that the regulations prohibit the removal of employees for the filing of a grievance.
The notice of proposed removal in specific detail outlined the charges against appellant. It is clear to us that the Chief of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts was not proceeding against appellant simply because of her writing the January 24, 1953, letter. The Removal Advisory Hearing Board expressly noted that her letter was “acceptable procedure” in accordance with provisions of Naval Civilian Personnel Instruction 80. Rather, she became vulnerable, a reading of the notice discloses, because the letter contained certain “false and unfounded ■charges and statements which slandered and defamed, and it reflected unfavorably upon [her immediate superior’s] integrity, motives and efficiency.” In addition the notice specified the dates and the nature of various other grounds for disciplinary action which the proposed action takes into consideration.
In the hearings, appellant presented witnesses and was represented by counsel. The Hearing Board issued a report with findings and recommendations, and found that the charges against appellant were in part sustained. The Removal Advisory Hearing Board having unanimously affirmed, an appeal was thereafter taken to and denied by the Secretary of the Navy, who also denied a later request for reconsideration.
Appellant’s cause was fully presented and thoroughly considered. Even treating the January 24, 1953, letter as a grievance, as appellant urges, we must observe that the right to file a grievance does not carry with it the privilege of including false and unfounded charges, defamatory in nature.
Since we find that no procedural rights of the appellant have been denied, and since it has been administratively determined that the various charges constituted grounds for removal, our function is exhausted.
Affirmed.
. Carter v. Forrestal, 1949, 85 U.S.App. D.C. 53, 175 F.2d 364, certiorari denied, 1949, 338 U.S. 832, 70 S.Ct. 47, 94 L.Ed. 507.

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

Answer: 1