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:
Charles L. PERDUE, Jr., Appellant, v. SEARS, ROEBUCK AND COMPANY, Appellee.
No. 81-2035.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued March 30, 1982.
Decided Nov. 29, 1982.
F. Guthrie Gordon, III, Charlottesville, Va. (Lowe, Gordon, Jacobs & Snook, Charlottesville, Va., on brief), for appellant.
James C. Shannon, Richmond, Va. (May, Miller & Parsons, Richmond, Va., Law Offices of John M. Kenney, Lake Success, N.Y., on brief), for appellee.
Before WIDENER and SPROUSE, Circuit Judges, and KISER, District Judge.
United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.
WIDENER, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiff, as administrator for the estate of his son, Kevin Barry Perdue, brought this diversity action in the district court alleging that the Sears tires on the Cherry vehicle at the time of the accident in question contributed to his decedent’s death. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendant on the basis of a release given by the plaintiff to the defendant’s alleged joint tortfeasor. Perdue v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 523 F.Supp. 203 (W.D.Va.1981). Plaintiff appealed, asserting that the district court misinterpreted the applicable Virginia statute. We affirm.
The facts in this case are not in dispute. Kevin Perdue was killed on December 3, 1979 while riding as a passenger in a vehicle driven by Terrence Cherry. A suit by plaintiff against Cherry, in the Circuit Court of Albemarle County, ended in a settlement. As a part of plaintiff’s petition to the court to settle the case, which settlement was approved by the court June 25, 1980, plaintiff stated that “the defendant [Cherry] is to be forever released and discharged.” Plaintiff subsequently instituted this action against Sears, alleging that the Sears tires on Cherry’s car contributed to the accident.
Defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that the release of Cherry from further liability also released Sears under the Virginia common law doctrine that release of one joint tortfeasor releases all joint tortfeasors. The plaintiff countered that this doctrine was abrogated by a then applicable Virginia statute which provided, “When a covenant not to sue is given in good faith to one of two or more persons liable in tort for the same injury or the same wrongful death,” this does not discharge other joint tortfeasors. Va.Code § 8.01-35.1 (in effect July 1, 1979 through June 30, 1980). Plaintiff argued that the term covenant not to sue was generic and included discharges which were labeled as releases. The district court disagreed, noting that the statute was unambiguous as written. Furthermore, the Virginia General Assembly had amended the statute, effective July 1, 1980, to specifically cover “a release or a covenant not to sue” rather than merely “a covenant not to sue.” The district court concluded that the statutory change was neither a clarification of the legislature’s previous intent nor a needless addition of a synonym. Rather, the district court reasoned, the 1980 amendment represented an increase in the scope of the earlier statute.
On appeal, plaintiff has repeated his argument that the term covenant not to sue is generic and includes releases. He claims that a contrary interpretation would be against the intent of the General Assembly, although he has provided no evidence of legislative intent other than passage of the 1980 amendment. The Virginia Supreme Court has not ruled on the meaning of Va.Code § 8.01-35.1 in effect on June 25, 1980, the day the release was given to Cherry.
We believe that the district court made a reasonable interpretation of Virginia law, and we could affirm on the basis of its opinion alone. Any doubt, however, as to the correctness of the district court’s decision was removed when the latest session of the Virginia General Assémbly further amended Va.Code § 8.01-35.1 by adding:
D. This section shall apply to all such covenants not to sue executed on or after July 1, 1979, and to all such releases executed on or after July 1,1980, regardless of the date the causes of action affected thereby accrued.
1982 Va. Acts c. 196. The interpretation of § 8.01-35.1 urged by the appellant would render this statute meaningless because it would require our holding that releases and covenants not to sue are the same. While § 8.01-35.1(D) did not take effect until April 1,1982 and thus arguably may not be directly applicable to the instant case, .we think it clearly indicates what our decision should be by its distinction between a release and a covenant not to sue, and is undeniable proof that the General Assembly has preserved the two distinct forms.
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.
. The Virginia General Assembly’s distinction in Va.Code § 8.01-35.1(D) between covenants not to sue and releases is consistent with a long recognized distinction in Virginia common law. It was long the law of Virginia that a release of one joint tortfeasor amounted to a release of all joint tortfeasors. Wright v. Orlowski, 218 Va. 115, 120, 235 S.E.2d 349, 352 (1977); Ruble v. Turner, 12 Va. (2 Hen. & M.) 38 (1808). On the other hand, a covenant not to sue one joint tortfeasor did not necessarily prevent actions against fellow tortfeasors. See Lackey v. Brooks, 204 Va. 428, 432, 132 S.E.2d 461, 464-65 (1963); Shortt v. Hudson Supply & Equipment Co., 191 Va. 306, 310, 60 S.E.2d 900, 903 (1950); 16 Michie’s Jurisprudence, Release § 3 (1979). This distinction does not depend altogether on the form of the instrument, however, because on at least two occasions the Virginia Supreme Court held that documents labeled as covenants not to sue one of several joint tortfeasors barred actions against other joint tortfeasors because the agreements and the instruments memorializing them were found to be accords and satisfaction. Wright, 218 Va. at 120-21; 235 S.E.2d at 354; Shortt, 191 Va. at 313-14; 60 S.E.2d at 904. Nevertheless, the distinction between covenants not to sue and releases remains viable in cases such as Lackey, supra, where the Court held that a covenant not to sue the master (lessee) in a lease agreement did not bar the lessor from suing the servant under a similar rule to that pertaining to the release of all joint tortfeasors by the release of one. 204 Va. at 432; 132 S.E.2d at 464-65.

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