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 "natural persons". 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:
NELSON-WIGGEN PIANO CO. v. UNITED STATES.
No. 5523.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
June 2, 1936.
J. S. Seidman, of New York City, for appellant.
Frank J. Wideman, • Asst. Atty. Gen., Sewall Key, Andrew D. Sharpe, and E. F. McMahon, Sp. Assts. to Atty. Gen., and Michael L. Igoe, U. S. Atty., of Chicago, 111., for the United States.
Before EVANS and SPARKS,' Circuit Judges, and LINDLEY, District Judge.
LINDLEY, District Judge.
Appellant sued to recover a payment of $10,384.37 for manufacturer’s excise taxes -imposed by the Revenue Act of 1924 on sales of coin-operated devices, alleged to have been wrongfully assessed and collected on automatic pianos. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue found that automatic pianos manufactured and sold by appellant were coin-operated devices within section 600 (8) of the Revenue Act of 1924, 43 Stat. 322, which levies a tax upon “coin-operated devices, coin-operated machines, and devices and machines operated by any substitute for a coin.” The District Court held for appellee, and this appeal followed.
The tax complained of was imposed by the collector upon sales of pianos between June 2, 1924, and February 25, 1926. It included penalties and interest. The tax itself was $8,629.84, and was paid in full on January 21, 1929. A claim for refund was denied by the Commissioner.
On. January 24, 1929, after payment of the tax in full, appellant submitted its offer of $1,754.53 in compromise of a 25 per cent, penalty and 5 per cent, penalty and interest assessed, all aggregating $3,827.82, plus unassessed accrued interest. On April 4, 1929, the Commissioner, with the consent of the Secretary of the Treasury, accepted this offer and abated the unpaid balance. The assessment of interest had been levied under section 603 of the Revenue Act of 1924, 43 Stat. 324 (26 U.S.C.A. §§ 1121, 1122, 1126 and note), and the penalties under section 3176 of the Revised Statutes, as amended by Revenue Act 1924, § 1003 (26 U.S.C.A. § 1512 and note), which provide that penalties and interest shall be added to the tax and collected as a part thereof. Appellee insists that the judgment should be affirmed because, as it says, a voluntary compromise of penalties and interest, including a release from liability to pay tax, plus penalties and interest, constitutes full settlement of a single tax liability by the parties and precludes recovery of any amount paid.
Under the .acts of Congress mentioned, the interest and penalties are added to and become a part of the tax. They are constituent parts of one assessment, effecting a single liability, and are not merely an aggregation of separate items of indebtedness. Ely & Walker Dry Goods Co. v. United States, 34 F.(2d) 429 (C.C.A.8); Zemurray v. United States, 64 Ct.Cl. 657; California Wine Ass’n of N. Y. v. United States, 65 Ct.Cl. 7; Big Diamond Mills Co. v. United States, 51 F.(2d) 721 (C.C.A.8); Rasmussen v. Brownfield-Canty Carpet Co., 31 F.(2d) 89 (C.C.A.9); Walker v. Alamo Foods Co. (C.C.A.) 16 F.(2d) 694, 696, certiorari denied 274 U.S. 741, 47 S.Ct. 587, 71 L.Ed. 1320.
In Ely & Walker Dry Goods Co. v. United States, supra, the court held that a compromise of both principal and penalty was a bar to recovery of the tax paid. In Walker v. Alamo Foods Co., supra, the additional tax consisted of $342,000 plus penalty. The taxpayer offered and. the government received $318,000 in “payment of all income and excess profits taxes and in compromise of all penalties and all civil and criminal liabilities.” It was held that the taxpayer could not recover.
In Big Diamond Mills Co. v. United States, supra, upon which appellant relies, the court held the tax and interest to be one liability, and remarked that there was no authority to compromise the interest independently of the tax. The court held further, however, that if there were no tax due the compromise as to the interest falls. It is because of this holding that appellant insists the present compromise is not a bar.
Here there was a bona fide dispute as to the validity of the assessment. This was paid, and appellant thereafter compromised the penalties and interest, a constituent part of the’ tax. Since tax, penalties, and interest are one co-ordinated liability, and there can be no penalty or interest unless there is a valid tax, a compromise of such penalty and interest is an admission of valid tax assessment and, under the rules governing compromises, must be a settlement of the entire single liability. Compromises are contracts of settlement, and the compromise of one aliquot part of a single disputed liability 'and payment of the balance in full is a settlement of all parts of such single liability. It binds both parties and precludes suit to recover.
In view of our conclusions it is unnecessary to notice other assignments of error.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 0