Task: songer_appfed

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 "the federal government, its agencies, and officials". 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.

LEWIS, Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma dismissing a complaint brought by the Secretary of Labor against defendant under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq.). Plaintiff has raised two issues in this appeal:
1. Whether the Secretary made sufficient efforts to effect voluntary compliance through informal conciliation as required by § 7(b) of the ADEA, 29 U.S.C. § 626(b).
2. Assuming failure of the Secretary to sufficiently pursue informal conciliation, whether the district court should have stayed proceedings rather than dismiss the complaint.
The factual setting to this action begins in May, 1973, when Emory Osgood notified the Secretary of Labor of his intent to sue defendant under the ADEA for allegedly forcing him to take early retirement because of his age. Dean Speer, a Labor Department compliance officer, met with representatives of defendant in June, 1973 for two hours to discuss the Osgood case. Speer then conducted an investigation concerning possible ADEA violations by defendant with regard to other employees. In December, 1973, Speer notified Robert Webster, a representative of defendant, that remedial action in the form of re-employment or a cash settlement should be taken with respect to Osgood and another former employee, George Sokol. Sokol had not filed a notice of intent to sue, and defendant had not been previously informed that Sokol’s case was specifically under investigation. When Webster responded that such remedial measures would not be taken, Speer advised him that the file would be forwarded to the Labor Department’s legal office for analysis and a decision as to further action.
In May, 1974, James Daniels filed a notice of intent to sue defendant in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia compliance officer contacted defendant about Daniels, but later turned the matter over to Mr. Speer in Tulsa.
The Osgood/Sokol file was returned to Speer in July, 1974, with advice and instructions as to additional information to be developed. Pursuant to these instructions Speer furthered his investigation, and on October 23,1974 Speer and a Labor Department attorney met with Webster. At that time Speer advised Webster of the government’s finding that defendant had engaged in a pattern of age discrimination with regard to seven named individuals, including Osgood, Sokol and Daniels. This was the first indication to defendant from Speer that a specific investigation had been conducted with respect to the other four persons alleged to be discriminatees. Speer asked if defendant would agree to extend re-employment and lost wages to the seven individuals, but Webster answered that he did not have enough information about all of them to respond. Webster said he would like to review the matter and would be prepared to discuss it at some later time. The Labor Department officials would not agree to further negotiations, however, unless defendant agreed to waive the statute of limitations which would run with respect to some of the named individuals on December 1.
Defendant refused to consent to the waiver, and the Secretary filed this suit the following month, alleging age discrimination against the seven former employees. The district court sustained defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment and dismissed the complaint with prejudice on grounds that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction or, in the alternative, the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted as a result of plaintiff’s failure to attempt to effect voluntary compliance through informal methods.
I.
The ADEA places primary emphasis on conciliation to resolve disputes. § 7(b) of the statute provides:
* * * Before instituting any action under this section, the Secretary shall attempt to eliminate the discriminatory practice or practices alleged, and to effect voluntary compliance with the requirements of this chapter through informal methods of conciliation, conference, and persuasion.
The legislative history of the Act manifests the congressional intent that enforcement be effected wherever possible without resorting to formal litigation. The House Report states:
It is intended that the responsibility for enforcement vested in the Secretary by section 7, be initially and exhaustively directed through informal methods of conciliation, conference, and persuasion and formal methods applied only in the ultimate sense. (Emphasis added.)
H.R. No. 805, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., U.S. Code Cong. & Admin.News, pp. 2213, 2218 (1967).
At the October 23 meeting, plaintiff failed to follow this legislative directive by conditioning further negotiations on defendant agreeing to waive the statute of limitations. Defendant had indicated a willingness to continue informal conciliation without the waiver, and over one month was available to that end before the December 1 deadline. Defendant was under no obligation to waive the statute of limitations, and it was reasonable for defendant to require time to review the case histories of the named individuals before formulating a response to plaintiff’s demand for reinstatement and lost income. Marshall v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., D.Conn., 78 F.R.D. 97. By insisting on waiver of the limitations period as a condition to further negotiations, plaintiff prematurely restricted the conciliation process and thus failed to fully exhaust the informal enforcement avenues as contemplated by § 7(b). Brennan v. Ace Hardware Corporation, 8 Cir., 495 F.2d 368.
II.
Our consideration of this case, however, does not end with the conclusion that plaintiff failed to fully perform his conciliatory function. The congressional desire that the Secretary “exhaustively” seek informal compliance before resorting to litigation places a heavy burden indeed upon the plaintiff, for an employer can almost always point to some avenue of conciliation which has not been “exhaustively” exploited. Marshall v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., supra, at 104. Were the courts to demand full compliance with this exacting standard upon pains of dismissal, enforcement of the ADEA would be severely hampered. We have previously noted that “[t]he ADEA is remedial and humanitarian legislation and should be liberally interpreted to effectuate the congressional purpose of ending age discrimination in employment.” Dartt v. Shell Oil Co., 10 Cir., 539 F.2d 1256, 1260, aff’d per curiam by an equally divided court, 434 U.S. 99, 98 S.Ct. 600, 54 L.Ed.2d 270. The drastic step of dismissal in this action is incompatible with the humanitarian nature of the Act.
We are aided here by the recent decision of this court in E.E.O.C. v. Zia Company, 10 Cir., 582 F.2d 527. Zia was concerned with the sufficiency of EEOC conciliation efforts in an action arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII contains a conciliation provision essentially identical to that of the ADEA, and interpretations of one provision are useful in cases arising under the other. Dartt v. Shell Oil Co., supra, at 1259.
In Zia, the EEOC had failed to sufficiently exhaust conciliation possibilities in good faith, and the district court therefore concluded that it was without jurisdiction to grant relief. Remanding to the court below, we held that where there had been only a limited effort at conciliation, the district court nevertheless had jurisdiction over the cause of action. Our opinion then states:
The inquiry into the duty of “good faith” on the part of the EEOC is relevant to whether the court should entertain the claim, or stay the proceedings for further conciliation efforts, not to its power over the cause. 582 F.2d at 533.
We likewise hold that in an ADEA case, once there has been significant effort by the Secretary to effect voluntary compliance, if the district court finds that further conciliation efforts are required the proper course is to stay proceedings until such informal conciliation can be concluded. Opportunity for full and exhaustive conciliation is thereby afforded without jeopardizing the injured persons’ right of ultimate access to the courts. Such procedure harmonizes optimally with the dual purposes of the statute: “to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment; [and] to help employers and workers find ways of meeting problems arising from the impact of age on employment.” 29 U.S.C. § 621(b).
In the instant case the Labor Department officials made a substantial initial effort to effect voluntary compliance. In particular, plaintiff informed the defendant of the specific allegations of misconduct and what action was required to comply with the Act. While plaintiff’s efforts fell far short of what might reasonably be considered “exhaustive,” there was nevertheless a sufficient attempt at conciliation to meet the minimum jurisdictional requirement.
The matter is therefore remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
. The court below also ruled that the statute of limitations bars any claim on behalf of R. C. Holcomb, one of the seven named individuals. No appeal has been taken from this ruling, and the dismissal as to Holcomb still stands.
. Compare 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(b) with 29 U.S.C. § 626(b).

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officialss"? Answer with a number.
Answer:

Answer: 1