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.

Opinion:
ACHESON, Secretary of State, v. NOBUO ISHIMARU.
No. 12690.
United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.
Dec. 4, 1950.
Ray J. O’Brien, U. S. Atty., Howard K. Hoddick, Asst, Honolulu, T. H., Edgar R. Bonsall, Asst. U. S. Atty., San Francisco, Cal., for appellant.
Wilfred C. Tsukiyama, Honolulu, T. H., A. L. Wirin, Los Angeles, Cal., for appellee.
Before HEALY, BONE, and POPE, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
This matter is befo-re us on a motion to dismiss the appeal of the Secretary of State on the ground that the order of which he seeks review ’is not appealable. By agreement of .the parties, the appeal is likewise before us for decision on the merits in event the motion to dismiss is denied.
•In 1948 appellee (hereafter called the plaintiff) brought suit against the Secretary pursuant to § 503 of the Nationality Act of 1940, 8 U.S.C.A. § 903, *to obtain a judgment declaring him to be a national of the United States. The Secretary answered, but notwithstanding the suit has long been at issue it has not been tried, allegedly because of the refusal of the 'Consular authorities to grant the plaintiff’s application for a certificate of identity so that he may come to Hawaii, where the suit is pending, to testify in his case. 'Consult Statute, note 1, supra. In March of 1950 plaintiff moved for an order directing the Secretary to issue such a certificate, supporting the motion by an affidavit of his counsel giving an account of the circumstances. The matters stated in the affidavit were not controverted by the Secretary, and the court ordered the latter to issue a certificate, or other equivalent document, enabling the plaintiff to return to Hawaii for the purpose of attending the trial and being a witness in his own behalf. It is from this order that the appeal was taken.
lt appears to be undisputed that the plaintiff, as alleged in his complaint, was born in the Territory of Hawaii and went as a minor to Japan. As conceded by the Secretary in his argument here, the sole issues raised below are: “1. Did the Appellee expatriate himself, under the provisions of Section 80,1c, Title 8, United States Code, by serving in the Japanese Army? 2. Did the Appellee expatriate himself, under the provisions of Section 801e, Title 8, United States Code, by voting in a political election in a foreign state, namely Japan?”
We are of opinion that the order below is not appealable. It appears not to fall “in that small class which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated.” Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 1225, 93 L.Ed. 1528. By this order the district court but took a step toward final disposition of the merits of the case. The order is more nearly analogous to that held purely interlocutory in Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U.S. 323, 60 S.Ct. 540, 84 L.Ed. 783, involving an attempted appeal from the denial of a motion to quash a subpoena duces tecum.
The appeal is dismissed.
. The statute reads: “If any person who claims a right or privilege as a national of the United States is denied such right or privilege by any Department or agency, or executive official thereof, upon the ground that he is not a national of the United States, such person, regardless of whether he is within the United States or abroad, may institute an action against the head of such Department or agency in the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia or in the district court of the United States for the district in which such person claims a permanent residence for a judgment declaring him to be a national of the United States. If such person is outside the United States and shall have instituted such an action in court, he may, upon submission of a sworn application showing that the claim of nationality presented in such action is made in good faith and has a substantial basis, obtain from a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States in the foreign country in which, he is residing a certificate of identity stating that his nationality status is pending before the court, and may be admitted to the United States with such certificate upon the condition that he shall be subject to deportation in case it shall be decided by the court that he is not a national of the United States. Such certificate of identity shall not be denied solely on the ground that such person has lost a status previously had or acquired as a national of the United States; and from any denial of an application for such certificate the applicant shall be entitled to an appeal to the Secretary of State, who, if he approves the denial, shall state in writing the reasons for his decision. The Secretary of State, with approval of the Attorney General, shall prescribe rules and regulations for the issuance of certificates of identity as above provided.” 8 U.S.O.A. § 903.
. By reference to the statute (footnote 1, supra) it is seen to provide that “Such certificate of identity shall not be denied solely on the ground that such person has lost a status previously had or acquired as a national of the United States”.

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.

Choices:

Answer: 0