Task: songer_appbus

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 "private business and its executives". 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:
Hilt Truck Line, Inc. (Hilt) appeals from an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission denying in part related applications of Hilt to purchase the operating rights of West Suburban Motor Express, Inc. Among other things, these rights authorize the transportation of candy, steel, machinery, food and automotive equipment within a fifty mile radius of Melrose Park, Illinois as well as from any point outside that area for any shipper within the same. Seven carriers protested the application. The Administrative Law Judge found that West Suburban’s operations were not dormant within the fifty mile base area but were dormant outside thereof; and, further, that the “[p]rotestants will not be materially adversely affected by such a grant of authority herein, especially since the irregular route service of the vendee is essentially different from the general freight operations of the protestants.”
These findings by the Administrative Law Judge were in part modified by the Commission which approved the transfer only as to Cook, DuPage and Kane Counties, together with Will County, which was included because a public need was shown for such service. The Commission found that West Suburban’s authority was dormant in the remaining counties approved by the Administrative Law Judge— DeKalb, Grundy, Kendall, Kankakee,' Lake and McHenry. However, it did not enter findings essential to its holding of dormancy; on the contrary, it adopted the findings and conclusions of the Administrative Law Judge, one of which was that the “protestants will not be materially adversely affected by such a grant of authority.” Under the cases of the Commission itself, we are therefore obliged to reverse.
In a long series of cases, the Commission has consistently held that harm to protesting carriers is a necessary prerequisite to a finding of dormancy. As early as 1958, it held that the concept of dormancy was formulated to protect “other carriers which have been required to expand their carrier facilities in order to take up the vacuum” created by the loss of service of the dormant authority. King’s Van & Storage, Inc.—Pur.—Millard, 75 M.C.C. 582, 585 (1958). This concept was approved in Arrow Transportation Co. v. United States, 300 F.Supp. 813 (D.C.R.I.1969), where dormancy was defined as “an abandonment or termination of services the reactivation of which will result in danjages either to the public interest or to intervening or protesting carriers who conducted operations during the interruption of said services.” At 818. This definition has been accepted by the Commission and applied in numerous cases. Holme Freight Lines, Inc.—Control, 116 M.C.C. 874, 880 (1975); Roadway Exp. Inc.—Control and Merger—Atlas, 122 M.C.C. 333, 335 (1976). Under these cases, the Commission must find that: (1) there has been an abandonment or termination of services; and (2) the reactivation of service will damage either the public interest or protesting carriers who conducted operations during the interruption of service. Here the Commission failed to find any damage to either the public interest or to a protesting carrier which would be caused by a reactivation of service. Indeed the finding of the Administrative Law Judge— which the Commission did not disturb — was that “protestants will not be materially adversely affected by such a grant of authority herein . . . ” The burden is on the protestant to establish the manner in which it would be injured, the particular traffic it would lose as the result of reactivation or other harm that would ensue. Roadway Exp. Inc.—Control and Merger—Atlas, supra, at 338.
The Commission asserts that it thoroughly analyzed protestors’ evidence of harm from the proposed service and concluded that, “as restricted,” the protestants would not be harmed. But this is not to find that harm would result to the protestors in the six remaining counties. The only possible harm, as articulated by the Commission, that might result is that since the protestors: “had authority to serve those counties and were able to expand operations in those six Illinois counties” where Hilt sought to offer service, they might be foreclosed from doing so. This possibility of harm is much too remote. The protestors have had such authority but have not exploited it. No reason has been given as to why they have allowed their authority to lie asleep. In the meanwhile, the public has suffered. Hilt wishes to activate this service. We believe that such a protest is not only too little but is too late. As a second string to their bow, the Commission says that where new service is involved, the new applicant must come forward with evidence of public need and cannot rely on allegations that protestors have not submitted positive proof of diversion of traffic. But this is not new service since authority already exists covering its traffic; what the Commission has done is to employ the theory of dormancy to destroy the authority of Hilt to handle this traffic under its purchase from West Suburban. The Commission cannot disregard its own precedents but must reasonably explain an alternation of policy. Greater Boston Television Corp. v. F. C. C., 143 U.S.App.D.C. 383, 444 F.2d 841, 852 (1970), cert. den. 403 U.S. 923, 91 S.Ct. 2229, 29 L.Ed.2d 701 (1971); National Association of Food Chains, Inc. v. I. C. C., 535 F.2d 1308 (D.C.Cir.1976). The Commission has failed to do so here and we are compelled to reverse.
The same reasoning applies on West Suburban’s operations outside the fifty mile base area. Neither the Commission nor the Administrative Law Judge found that reactivation in that area would damage either the public interest or the protesting carriers. It follows that the finding of dormancy outside the fifty mile base area must also be reversed.
It is so ordered.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives"? Answer with a number.
Answer:

Answer: 2