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:
Shirl E. HARTLE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PACKARD ELECTRIC, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 88-4953
Summary Calendar.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
July 14, 1989.
Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Aug. 10, 1989.
Dixon L. Pyles, Pyles & Tucker, Jackson, Miss., for plaintiff-appellant.
Paul 0. Miller, III, W. Thomas Siler, Jr., Jackson, Miss., for defendants-appellees.
Before CLARK, Chief Judge, JOHNSON and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Shirl E. Hartle challenges the removal of his cause of action filed in a Mississippi circuit court to the United States District Court and that latter court’s subsequent grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants. Because we find that the federal court lacked jurisdiction of this dispute, we vacate the district court’s judgment and remand with instructions that the case be remanded to the Mississippi court from which it was removed.
I.
Shirl Hartle was terminated from his employment with Packard Electric, a division of General Motors Corporation, on September 2, 1986. He brought suit in the Circuit Court of Hinds County, Mississippi against Packard and various individual defendants. His claims included civil conspiracy to unlawfully terminate his employment with Packard, unlawful interference with his contract of employment, unjustifiable interference with his prospective economic advantage, and wrongful termination. As part of his relief, Hartle sought reinstatement as a salaried employee at Packard and the restoration of all benefits afforded salaried employees.
The defendants’ petition for removal asserted that the district court had original jurisdiction over the claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. Diversity jurisdiction is not present in this case. Hartle’s motion to remand the case was denied by the magistrate, who stated that since the complaint attempted “to create or attach significant rights to pension and other employee benefits that are regulated by federal law,” Hartle’s claims were preempted by ERISA and removable.
II.
It is well-settled law that a cause of action arises under federal law only when the plaintiff’s well-pleaded complaint raises issues of federal law. See Louisville & Nashville Railroad v. Mottley, 211 U.S. 149, 29 S.Ct. 42, 53 L.Ed. 126 (1908). Federal preemption is ordinarily raised as a matter of defense, and therefore does not authorize removal to federal court. In Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58, 107 S.Ct. 1542, 95 L.Ed.2d 55 (1987), however, the United States Supreme Court held that state law actions displaced by the civil enforcement provisions of ERISA can be characterized as claims arising under federal law. Therefore, such actions can properly be removed to federal court even though ERISA preemption does not appear on the face of the complaint.
A prerequisite to this exercise of jurisdiction, however, is that the state law claims actually be preempted by ERISA. The preemption provisions of ERISA are expansive:
Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section [the saving clause], the provisions of this chapter shall supersede any and all state laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan ...”
29 U.S.C. § 1144(a).
The purpose of this preemption clause is to “establish pension plan regulation as exclusively a federal concern.” Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U.S. 504, 523, 101 S.Ct. 1895, 1906, 68 L.Ed.2d 402 (1981). In keeping with this broad purpose, the Supreme Court has held that a state law “relates to” an employee benefit plan “in the normal sense of the phrase, if it has a connection with or reference to such a plan.” Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U.S. 724, 105 S.Ct. 2380, 85 L.Ed.2d 728 (1985).
Hartle’s claims are all based on Mississippi common law. In order to prevail on several of those claims, Hartle must prove that he had a fixed-term employment contract with Packard. To that end, he alleged in his complaint that his eligibility for pension and certain other benefits provided under the General Motors employee benefit plan created an employment contract until the year 2002, when Hartle would attain mandatory retirement age. Also, Hartle made investments in the common stock of General Motors through the employee stock ownership program, a part of the benefit package. Therefore, he argues, he gave valuable consideration in addition to his obligation of service, and his employment was no longer terminable at Packard's will.
Based on the assertions in Hartle’s pleading, the magistrate characterized this action as one related to an employee benefit plan and thus preempted by ERISA. This is a mischaracterization. Unlike other cases in which preemption has been found to exist, Hartle’s case does not in any manner implicate the federal regulation of employee benefit plans. This is not an action to recover benefits under a plan. See, e.g., Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Taylor, 481 U.S. 58, 107 S.Ct. 1542, 95 L.Ed.2d 55 (1987). Nor does this action encompass the processing of claims for benefits under a regulated plan. See, e.g., Pilot Life Insurance Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U.S. 41, 107 S.Ct. 1549, 95 L.Ed.2d 39 (1987). Rather, Hartle asserts that as a matter of Mississippi law, his participation in various phases of GM’s employee benefit plan has changed his at will employment status with Packard to one which conferred tenure.
These claims are only peripherally connected to the concerns addressed by ERISA. None of these connections warrant a finding that the state laws “relate to” a covered plan for the purposes of preemption.
III.
Hartle’s claims do not arise under the laws of the United States. Since the parties are not diverse, the federal district court was without jurisdiction to hear this case. Summary judgment in favor of the defendants is vacated and the case is remanded with instructions to remand to the Circuit Court of Hinds County, Mississippi.
VACATED and REMANDED with INSTRUCTIONS.

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

Choices:

Answer: 1