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:
Mary Elizabeth WILSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. RETAIL CREDIT COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 72-2984.
Summary Calendar.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
Feb. 20, 1973.
W. Roberts Wilson, Jr., Pascagoula, Miss., for plaintiff-appellant.
Webb M. Mize, Gulfport, Miss., for defendant-appellee.
Before GEWIN, AINSWORTH and SIMPSON, Circuit Judges.
Rule 18, 5th Cir. See Isbell Enterprises, Inc. v. Citizens Casualty Co. of New York et al., 5th Cir. 1970, 431 F.2d 409, Part I.
PER CURIAM:
In this diversity case Mrs. Wilson appeals from the district court judgment dismissing her complaint on the ground that it is now barred by Mississippi’s statute of limitations. Miss.Code Ann. § 722 (1942). Because we affirm the district court’s judgment on the basis of Mississippi’s collateral estoppel rule, we find it unnecessary to reach the several contentions presented by Mrs. Wilson.
In an earlier action brought by Mrs. Wilson against Retail Credit Company, the district court granted summary judgment against her. We subsequently affirmed the decision of the lower court. Mary Wilson v. Retail Credit Co., 438 F.2d 1043 (5th Cir. 1971). She has now brought this action which involves the same transactions and same legal rights as did her previous action against Retail Credit Company.
Under these circumstances we think the Mississippi doctrine of collateral es-toppel is dispositive. The late Chief Justice Ethridge, of the Mississippi Supreme Court fully explicated the doctrine in his learned opinion in Garraway v. Retail Credit Co., 244 Miss. 376, 141 So.2d 727 (Miss.1962) :
Collateral estoppel is a doctrine which operates, following a final judgment, to establish conclusively a matter of fact or law for the purposes of a later lawsuit on a different cause of action between the parties to the original action. ... In short, where a question of fact essential to a judgment is actually litigated and determined by a valid and final judgment, that determination is conclusive between the parties in a subsequent suit on a different cause of action. Id. at 730.
Every citizen is entitled to his day in court; however, our judicial system was not designed as an experimental laboratory to license losing parties to bring vexatious and repetitive claims based on the same transaction.
Affirmed.
. Mrs. Wilson's late husband instituted a similar claim which resulted in a summary judgment in favor of appellee, W. R. Wilson v. Retail Credit Co., 325 F.Supp. 460 (S.D.Miss.1971). We affirmed. 457 F.2d 1406 (1972).
. Mrs. Wilson's original suit was instituted on the theory of libel. We affirmed the dismissal of her action because she did not bring the suit within one year as required by the Mississippi statute of limitations applicable to libel actions. Miss. Code Ann. § 742 (1942). The instant complaint is grounded in products liability, misrepresentation and deceit, invasion of privacy, and interference with property and contract rights. Regardless of the disingenuous characterization, no new facts are alleged in the present litigation which were not already decided by the previous suit.
. See also, Seguros Tepeyac, S.A., Compania Mexicana de Seguros Generales v. Jernigan, 410 F.2d 718 (5th Cir. 1969) and 1B J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 0.410 [3] at. 1351-53 (2d ed. 1965).

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