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:
MERCANTILE TRUST CO. et al. v. KAHN.
No. 14675.
United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.
April 23, 1953.
Harold I. Elbert, St. Louis, Mo. (Edgar H. McCulloch and Thompson, Mitchell, Thompson & Douglas, St. Louis, Mo., were with him on the brief) for appellant.
Meyer M. Kahn, trustee in bankruptcy, filed brief pro se.
Before GARDNER, Chief Judge, and THOMAS and COLLET, Circuit Judges.
THOMAS, Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in a bankruptcy proceeding. The order appealed from affirmed an order of the referee denying the reclamation petition of the appellant.
The material facts are not in dispute. On October 18, 1949, Max Klein executed a promissory note for $1,678.32 payable in installments to Thoms Pontiac, Inc., of 5225 Delmar Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri. The note was secured by a chattel mortgage on a 1949 Pontiac automobile purchased from Thoms Pontiac on that date. The appellant Mercantile Trust Company purchased the note and mortgage from Thoms on October 19th, and on October 21st appellant mailed the mortgage to the Recorder of Deeds of St. Louis County, Missouri, and the Recorder received and recorded it on October 25, 1949. The reason for the delay from October 21st to October 25th is not shown. October 21, 1949, was on Friday and October 25th was on Tuesday.
On October 16, 1949, C. W. Marks Shoe Company of Chicago sold a pair of shoes to the bankrupt on open account for $4.64, and the shoes were delivered and accepted on October 20th.
On October 19, 1949, Barack Shoe Company of St. Louis, Missouri, extended credit to the bankrupt for $72.25, and on October 24,1949, for $130.60.
Both of these creditors filed claims against the bankrupt estate.
The mortgaged automobile was left at all times in the possession of the bankrupt until he filed a voluntary petition in bankruptcy on February 11, 1950, after which it came into the possession of Meyer M. Kahn, Trustee.
In its reclamation petition filed March 29, 1950, the appellant prays that the trustee be directed to surrender possession of the mortgaged automobile to appellant.
The referee denied the petition, the court affirmed, and this appeal followed.
The reclamation petition was denied on the ground that the chattel mortgage given by the bankrupt was not promptly recorded as required by the Missouri law and as a result it was invalid against the intervening claims of C. W. Marks Shoe Company and Barack Shoe Company and that under federal law it is void in its entirety against the claim of the trustee.
We think the authorities abundantly sustain these findings of the referee which were adopted and confirmed by fhe court.
Section 3486 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri 1939, V.A.M.S. § 443.460, provides that “No mortgage * * * of personal property hereafter made shall be valid against any other person than the parties thereto, unless possession of the mortgaged * * * property be delivered to and retained by the mortgagee * * * or unless the mortgage * * * shall be filed in the office of the recorder of deeds of the county where the mortgagor * * * resides, and in the case of the city of St. Louis, with the recorder of deeds for said city * *
The statute, it will be observed, does not -fix a definite time within which a chattel mortgage must be recorded, but the decisions of the Missouri courts hold that it must be within a reasonable time. What is a reasonable time must be determined by the circumstances in every case. But it must be recorded promptly to give it priority over the rights of subsequent creditors. See the decision of this court in United States Hoffman Machinery Corporation v. Lauchli, 8 Cir., 150 F.2d 301, where the Missouri cases are cited and applied. There it is shown that a reasonable time means the time necessary to file the mortgage in the Recorder’s office.
In this case the referee found, and it is not disputed, “ * * * that the physical act of taking this mortgage from the dealer’s place of business to the recorder’s office in Clayton for filing, could be accomplished within an hour, and from the bank’s place of business at 721 Locust Street [St. Louis], within two hours.” Five week days, however, intervened between the date of execution of the mortgage and the date of filing, which the referee and the court held to be an unreasonable delay. The appellant argues that it acted promptly in delivering the mortgage to the post office for delivery, but the answer to that contention is that it made the post office its agent to do what an employee could have done in a short and reasonable time. The appellant, therefore, assumed the “risk of running afoul - of the rights of creditors under the Missouri statute.” This court pointed out in the Lauchli case, supra, that convenience is not a .factor to be considered under the Missouri cases which will excuse delay in filing a chattel mortgage.
The foregoing authorities determine conclusively that the chattel mortgage is void as to the intervening creditors. The authorities are also conclusive that it is void as to the trustee. 11 U.S.C.A.Bankruptcy § 110 provides " * * * (e) (1) A transfer made or suffered or obligation incurred by a debtor adjudged a bankrupt under this title which, under any Federal or State law applicable thereto, is * * * voidable * * * by any creditor of the debtor, having a claim provable under this title, shall be null and void as against the trustee of such debtor.” That this statute is applicable to the situation here cannot be doubted. See Moore v. Bay, 284 U.S. 4, 52 S.Ct. 3, 76 L.Ed. 133; Buffum, Trustee, v. Peter Barceloux Co., 289 U.S. 227, 53 S.Ct. 539, 77 L.Ed. 1140.
Here it is shown that the mortgage under Missouri authorities was voidable by two creditors who filed claims for obligations incurred after the chattel mortgage was executed and before it was filed for record because of unreasonable delay in filing it in the Recorder’s office. It is, therefore, void as to the trustee.
Affirmed.

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: 1