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:
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul PHILLIPS, Jr., Defendant-Appellant.
No. 74-1216.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Feb. 11, 1975.
James L. Gay, Versailles, Ky. (court appointed), for defendant-appellant.
Eugene E. Siler, U. S. Atty., R. Burl McCoy, Asst. U. S. Atty., Lexington, Ky., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before WEICK and LIVELY, Circuit Judges, and O’SULLIVAN, Senior Circuit Judge.
PER CURIAM.
Phillips has appealed from his conviction by a jury in the District Court for knowingly transporting a motor vehicle, to wit, a stolen farm tractor, in interstate commerce, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2312.
Phillips complains (1) that inflammatory and prejudicial remarks were made by an Assistant United States Attorney in his closing argument to the jury; (2) that pretrial confrontations were conducted in such a suggestive manner as to render his identification unreliable; (3) that the District Court erred in not giving a specific instruction on identification, although such instruction was not requested by defense counsel; and (4) that the maximum prison sentence imposed was unduly harsh and was based on assumptions not in the record.
We will discuss only items 1 and 4 above, as we are of the opinion that items 2 and 3 have no merit.
The principal remarks of the Assistant District Attorney, complained of, are:
. now, Mr. Ponder insists that he is the person who rented the truck and for signing the contract. He says that Mr. Phillips was not with him. Well, I suggest to you that Mr. Ponder has purgered [sic] himself in that respect. (R. 241).
I submit to you that the testimony of the defendant and Mr. Ponder are, for the most part, a fabricated story, for the purpose of exonerating this defendant inasmuch as Mr. Ponder has already received a sentence after pleading guilty to this charge. (R. 247).
No objection to the argument was made at the trial. We are therefore required to find that the argument constituted plain error, in order to warrant reversal. It is contended that these remarks constituted the personal belief or opinion of the Assistant United States Attorney and therefore were improper. We disagree.
In reading the entire argument of the prosecutor to the jury, we are of the opinion that he was arguing on the basis of disputed evidence in the record, and was not stating his personal belief or opinion.
The difference is pointed out in Stewart v. United States, 101 U.S.App.D.C. 51, 247 F.2d 42 (1957). See also United States v. Hamilton, 409 F.2d 404 (7th Cir. 1969).
In sentencing Phillips, the District Judge stated:
. I just think this is a part of a theft ring, and this man [Phillips] was a cog in the wheel. How big a cog he was I don’t know, whether it was his idea or whether he saw a chance to make some quick money or whatever it was, I don’t know, but there is one thing certain the whole story hasn’t been told.
There is no evidence in the record to support any such charge against Phillips. The Court further stated:
I have to consider the fact that Mr. Ponder has come in here and obviously perjured himself and I have to further consider the fact, in the opinion of the Judge of the Court, this defendant has perjured himself. I don’t believe for one minute that he was over there hitchhiking there by Aberdeen, Maryland [sic] and just happened this U-Haul truck came along and he got in.
Neither Ponder nor Phillips, have ever been convicted of perjury, and it was error for the District Court, in its sentencing, to treat Phillips as if he had been convicted of perjury.
Furthermore, Ponder was the principal actor in the matter; he rented the U-Haul in Kentucky. There is no proof that Phillips did anything other than to be present at the time of renting the U-Haul, and as a passenger in the truck; and as to his presence in Kentucky even that was disputed.
Ponder had pleaded guilty to the Dyer Act violation and testified that Phillips was not with him at the time of the rental in Kentucky, but that he picked up Phillips later in Ohio. The District Judge had imposed on Ponder the maximum sentence of five years, and he imposed on Phillips, whom he termed as only a “cog in the wheel,” the same maximum sentence. This simply does not seem reasonable.
Phillips had only one previous conviction, about ten years ago, for which he had been placed on three years’ probation. He is married and the father of five children who are dependent upon him for their support. Also, he had been ill and the Court ordered that he be examined at the United States Medical Center at Springfield, Missouri.
The judgment of conviction is affirmed. The sentence is vacated for abuse of discretion, and the cause is remanded for resentencing.

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