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:
In the Matter of Sumner Sollitt Company, a corporation, Bankrupt, SUMNER SOLLITT COMPANY, Bankrupt-Appellee, v. Harry ADELMAN and Jerome S. Wald, etc., and Natalie Klein, Administra-trix, etc., Appellants.
No. 17253.
United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.
July 3, 1969.
Jerome S. Wald, Kalman Schein, Harry Adelman, Chicago, 111., for appellants.
Kenneth Prince, Allen J. Fagel, Chicago, 111., for appellee.
Before KNOCH, Senior Circuit Judge, KILEY and KERNER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Appellants appeal from a judment of the bankruptcy court denying their petition for review of an order of the Referee in bankruptcy denying appellants’ request for interim fees. We think the district court’s judgment is erroneous and that the Referee abused his discretion in the ruling.
On October 18, 1967, the Referee stated that he would allow the trustee $1,000 and the attorneys $15,000, on account of services rendered to that date, and di-, rected the drafting of an order accordingly. No objection was filed. The order was submitted, but not signed by the Referee. At a hearing on December 20, 1967, the Referee showed concern that if the applications for interim fees were granted the cost of administration would exceed 34% of the assets realized, and that the Northern District of Illinois had the “unenviable reputation” of having the highest cost of any district of administration of bankruptcy proceedings for 1966. On May 15, 1968, the application for interim fees was denied. At that time, because of a pending antitrust suit by the trustee against certain plumbing manufacturers, it was thought that the estate would not be closed for at least two years.
On petition for review the district court pointed out that no briefs had been filed opposing the petition, referred to the fact that the estate had been pending before the Referee for four years and that the Referee had ample opportunity to familiarize himself with all “facets of the case,” found no abuse of discretion and denied the petition.
At the time the applications were filed the attorneys had rendered services exceeding 2,000 hours over a period of 3y2 years without fees. The administration of the bankrupt’s assets was substantially complete, all assets had been liquidated, costs of administration and wage claimants had been paid, and a 50% dividend had been paid on tax claims. There was no question about any of this in the hearing which terminated in the Referee’s decision to grant no “interim allowances * * * at this time.”
We think the disallowance of $1,000 interim fees to the trustee for the reasons given by the Referee is an abuse of discretion. The same is. true, in our view of the disallowance of any fees to his attorneys. The largest single credi-. tor and the bankrupt, through their attorneys and the Referee, all agreed that for 3% years extensive and valuable services were excellently performed by commendable lawyers.
We do not say that the district court should not have shown concern to guard against the clouding of the administration of bankrupt estates in the Northern District of Illinois. We agree however with the Ninth Circuit decision in Jaco-bowitz v. Double Seven Corp., 378 F.2d 405 (9th Cir. 1967), that the “economical spirit of the Bankruptcy Act” should be weighed in determining reasonableness of bankruptcy fees, but that it is only one consideration. We agree too with the Ninth Circuit that although standards similar to those in setting fees for private employment are employed to determine reasonable fees in bankruptcy cases, the economical spirit “would seem to require” fixing such fees at the lower end of the reasonableness spectrum. There is no question raised in this record about the reasonableness of the hourly rate represented by the fees sought in the case before us.
Concededly, interim fees may be allowed, and it seems unreasonable to us to deny any interim fees to the trustee and attorneys who have served so well for so long a period with no fee allowances. The Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C. § 104, includes trustee and attorneys fees as costs of administration, In re Stotts, 93 F. 438, 439 (S.D.Iowa 1899), and these fees are entitled to preferential payment, Page v. Rogers, 149 F. 194 (6th Cir. 1906). The record here shows there is sufficient cash in the estate, after cost of administration and other items referred to above, from which to pay interim fees.
The district court judgment is reversed and the cause is remanded to the Referee for a hearing to determine a reasonable amount to be allowed under the appellants’ application for interim fees.

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: 99