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.

MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs, distributors of over-the-counter medicine and health products, appeal from a judgment of the Southern District of New York entered by Judge Constance Baker Motley after a non-jury trial dismissing their damages claim based on the allegation that defendant drug manufacturers had engaged in price discrimination in violation of the Robinson-Patman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 13(a), by selling Haley’s M-0 (“M-0”), a drug product, to competing distributors at a 25% discount not given to plaintiffs, and awarding defendants $262,661.51 plus interest on their counterclaims for the price of M-0 sold and delivered to plaintiffs. Plaintiffs also appeal from a judgment of the same court, entered after a jury verdict awarding them $75,000 damages for breach of an agreement by defendants to accept return of purchased M-0, granting defendants’ post-trial motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and dismissing plaintiffs’ breach of contract claim. Lastly, plaintiffs appeal two orders granting defendants reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in the sum of $1,000 based on plaintiffs’ bad faith opposition to a reasonable protective order and interposition of a frivolous motion. We affirm the judgments and orders.
In March, 1977, plaintiffs bought various sizes of M — O from Glenbrook Laboratories Division of defendant Sterling Drug Inc. Beginning on April 1, 1977, Sterling, through its subsidiary Breon Laboratories, Inc., began marketing M-0 at a 25% discount to customers which had not previously purchased or stocked M-0 in any of its sizes within the preceding year. Between May and December, 1977, plaintiffs bought large quantities of M-0 from defendants but did not receive the new customer 25% discount. Upon learning of this discount plaintiffs demanded the same discount on their purchases, which was refused on the ground that plaintiffs, not being new distributors of M-O, were ineligible to receive the discount. Defendants, however, did agree to accept the return of plaintiffs’ 16-ounce size M-0 remaining in stock, which plaintiffs had purchased from them. Subsequently, however, they refused to accept return of the goods. Plaintiffs claim that defendants violated § 2(a) of the Robinson-Patman Act by granting the 25% discount to other distributors but not to plaintiffs and § 2(e) of the Act by allowing other distributors to return purchases of M-0 for full refund but refusing such privilege to plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs’ § 2(a) Robinson-Patman Act price discrimination claim fails for two reasons. First, they did not show that the new distributor discount would tend to lessen competition substantially or to create a monopoly in any line of commerce, which is an essential condition precedent to establishing such a claim. See FLM Collission Parts, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 543 F.2d 1019 (2d Cir. 1976). Indeed, the discount offered to new distributors may well have increased competition by inducing newcomers to enter the M-0 distribution field. Secondly, plaintiffs failed to introduce substantial evidence showing that they were actually injured by defendants’ new distributor discount policy. Plaintiffs’ theory, that they were entitled to “automatic damages,” has been rejected by the Supreme Court, which requires a plaintiff to make a showing of actual injury attributable to a violation of the Robinson-Patman Act. J. Truett Payne Co. v. Chrysler Motors Corp., - U.S. -,-, 101 S.Ct. 1923, 1927, 68 L.Ed.2d 442 (1981). See also Enterprise Industries, Inc. v. Texas Co., 240 F.2d 457 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 353 U.S. 965, 77 S.Ct. 1049, 1 L.Ed.2d 914 (1957). For the latter reason, the dismissal of plaintiffs’ § 2(e) claim must also be affirmed. Our affirmance of the dismissal of plaintiffs’ Robinson-Patman Act claims should not be construed as an approval of the other grounds stated by Judge Motley in support of the dismissal.
With respect to plaintiffs’ claim for rescission of their contract for purchase of M-0 the jury, in response to special interrogatories, found that plaintiffs v had failed to prove their allegations of fraud and misrepresentation, which formed the basis of their rescission claim. This verdict is supported by the record. The jury also found that defendants had breached their alleged contract to accept return of M-0 in stock purchased from defendants, for which plaintiffs sought damages in the form of interest upon a line of credit used to finance their retention of the unretumed M-0 and storage costs. Plaintiffs’ claim that this finding entitled them to an order directing defendants to accept return of the merchandise must be denied because they sought rescission only on grounds of fraud and misrepresentation, which were rejected by the jury, and did not seek specific performance, to which they would not in any event be entitled, since any injury was com-pensable through money damages. Plaintiffs’ sole remedy was damages based on interest charges incurred by them during the period when defendants were alleged to have improperly refused to accept the return of unsold M-O. For this the jury awarded $75,000. Judge Motley granted judgment n. o. v. on the ground that plaintiffs had failed to present the jury with sufficient evidence to justify a reasonable calculation. of plaintiffs’ interest costs. With this disposition we agree.
It is doubtful whether plaintiffs would be entitled to recover as damages interest charges incurred by them prior to liquidation of the amount owed, see 5 Corbin on Contracts § 1046 (1964 ed.); 1 Restatement of the Law of Contracts § 337, much less interest charges actually incurred by them (in this case claimed at 16% to 20% per annum) as distinguished from the legal or statutory rate, see Avalon Construction Corp. v. Kirch Holding Co., 256 N.Y. 137, 141, 175 N.E. 651 (1931); Rachlin & Co. v. Tra-Mar, Inc., 33 A.D.2d 370, 308 N.Y.S.2d 153 (1st Dep’t 1970); Lee v. Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., 592 F.2d 39 (2d Cir. 1979); N.Y.C.P.L.R. §§ 5001(a), 5004. However, we need not resolve these issues in this case. Even assuming that for breach of contract plaintiffs were entitled to recover as damages the interest charges actually incurred by them as a result of the defendants’ refusal to accept the return of M-0 purchased by them from defendants, plaintiffs assumed the burden of first proving the amount of their unsold M-0 inventory purchased from defendants and the credit charges incurred by plaintiffs with respect to this merchandise after they tendered and defendants refused to accept it. Plaintiffs failed to meet this burden.
Plaintiffs conceded that their claim for breach of the contract for return of merchandise was limited to that portion of plaintiffs’ M-0 inventory which came in 16-ounce sizes. Moreover, their Vice-President, Jerrold Herman, testified that “toward the end of 1977 or the beginning of 1978” plaintiffs had made “three or four” purchases of M-0 from suppliers other than defendants. In addition, plaintiffs’ inventory included M-0 in sizes other than the 16-ounce size. Plaintiffs nevertheless failed to offer evidence of the amounts of M-0 purchased from other sources or the amounts of their unsold inventory in the 16-ounce size purchased from defendants. Under the circumstances the jury’s award of $75,000 could only have amounted to sheer' speculation, unsupported by record evidence. Accordingly the district court’s order granting judgment for the defendants dismissing the interest claim notwithstanding the verdict is affirmed.
Since defendants proved their counterclaim for goods sold and delivered and plaintiffs failed to adduce any evidence in opposition thereto, the judgment in favor of defendants on the counterclaim for the amount of the purchases plus pre-judgment interest is affirmed.
We also affirm the district court’s two sanction orders granting defendants’ motions for recovery of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in the sum.of $1,000, based on plaintiffs’ vexatious, bad faith conduct in opposing a reasonable protective order and in making a patently frivolous motion. See Roadway Express, Inc. v. Piper, 447 U.S. 752, 100 S.Ct. 2455, 65 L.Ed.2d 488 (1980); National Hockey League v. Metropolitan Hockey Club, 427 U.S. 639, 96 S.Ct. 2778, 49 L.Ed.2d 747 (1976) (per curiam); Browning Debenture Holders’ Committee v. DASA Corp., 560 F.2d 1078 (2d Cir. 1977).

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: 3