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:
KLEID v. RUTHBELL COAL CO.
No. 53.
Circuit’ Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Nov. 4, 1942.
Otterbourg, Steindler & Houston, of New York City (Aaron Rosen, of New York City, of counsel), for appellant.
Asa S. Herzog, of New York City, for appellee.
Before SWAN, AUGUSTUS N. HAND, and CLARK, Circuit Judges.
SWAN, Circuit Judge.
Upon its voluntary petition Empire Coal Sales Corporation was adjudged a bankrupt and the case referred to a referee in bankruptcy. In due season Ruthbell Coal Co., a West Virginia corporation, filed a proof of claim against the bankrupt to which the trustee in bankruptcy filed objections on the ground that said creditor had received preferences voidable under section 60, sub. b of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C.A. § 96, sub. b, and section 15 of Stock Corporation Law of New York. When said objections came on to be heard the creditor obtained an adjournment of the hearing, and thereafter, before the adjourned date, substituted counsel petitioned for leave to withdraw the claim. Over the protest of the trustee the creditor’s motion was granted upon certain conditions, the terms of which will appear later in this opinion. The district court confirmed the referee’s order, and the trustee has appealed. It is contended, first, that the referee was forbidden by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to permit withdrawal of the claim, and second, if the matter was discretionary, that the referee’s action constituted an abuse of discretion.
In support of the first point reliance is placed on the portion of Rule 41(a) (2), 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, which provides:
“If a counterclaim has been pleaded by a defendant prior to the service upon him of the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss, the action shall not be dismissed against the defendant’s objection unless the counterclaim can remain pending for independent adjudication by the court.”
The argument then turns to paragraphs (b) and (c) oí Rule 13 to support the contention that the trustee’s objection to the claim on the ground that the creditor had received a voidable preference is a counterclaim. We are in complete agreement with the district judge’s opinion (45 F.Supp. 974) that such objection is not a counterclaim. It is a purely defensive pleading interposed against allowance of the claim. See in re George Grenatti Associates, D.C. S.D.N.Y., 37 A.B.R.,N.S., 203. Under it the trustee can obtain no judgment for return of the property or for payment of its value. Metz v, Knobel, 2 Cir., 21 F.2d 317, 318. Nor has any ground been suggested under which the trustee’s pleading “can remain pending for independent adjudication” after withdrawal of the creditor’s claim. It is an affirmative defense — like estop-pel, statute of frauds, statute of limitations, or “other matter constituting an avoidance or affirmative defense,” listed in Rule 8(c) as affirmative defenses. Hence permission to withdraw the claim “upon such terms and conditions as the court deems proper” was a discretionary matter under Rule 41 (a) (2). No case opposed to this conclusion has been called to our attention. In re Hills, D.C.W. D.Wash., 35 F.Supp. 532, explicitly declined to decide the question, although expressing the opinion that the argument supporting the contention of counterclaim was “very persuasive.” For the reasons above stated we find the opposing argument more convincing.
There remains for determination the question whether discretion was abused. If the referee had denied leave to withdraw the claim, support for exercising his discretion in such manner could be found in Re Steinreich Associates, 2 Cir., 83 F, 2d 740; see, also, Bronx Brass Foundry v. Irving Trust Co., 297 U.S. 230, 56 S.Ct. 451, 80 L.Ed. 657. If the referee had permitted withdrawal without imposing terms, it may be that under those authorities an abuse of discretion would have to be found. That precise question is not before us for decision. Terms were imposed. Withdrawal was conditioned upon the creditor, a foreign corporation, accepting service of summons and submitting to the jurisdiction of the district court, promptly answering the trustee’s complaint, and joining in an application for an early trial; failure to comply with any of such conditions was to result in the reinstatement of the creditor’s claim and the trustee’s objections thereto for an immediate hearing. In the opinion of the district court such terms provided a reasonable method of litigating the issue of the alleged preference. It preserved to the creditor the right to a jury trial, while it accorded to the trustee the opportunity to bring to trial promptly a plenary suit for recovery of the preference without having to resort to a foreign jurisdiction. Whether, in the event a judgment is recovered, the trustee may still have to resort to the courts of a foreign jurisdiction to collect it cannot be foretold. We cannot hold that granting leave to withdraw the claim upon the terms imposed must necessarily be deemed an abuse of discretion. The order 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