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:
Aida Guzman De FONT et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 71-1124.
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
Heard Nov. 16, 1971.
Decided Jan. 6, 1972.
Antonio Montalvo-Nazario, San Juan, P. R., with whom Segurola & Montalvo, San Juan, P. R., was on brief, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Morton Hollander, Atty., Dept. of Justice, with whom L. Patrick Gray, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Julio Morales-Sanchez, U. S. Atty. and Robert M. Feinson, Atty., Dept. of Justice, were on brief, for defendants-appellees.
Before COFFIN, Circuit Judge, VAN OOSTERHOUT, Senior Circuit Judge, and STEPHENSON, Circuit Judge.
Of the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.
PER CURIAM.
Plaintiffs appeal from dismissal of their complaint under the Federal Tort Claims Act (28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b), 2674) for damages sustained as a result of malpractice injury to their deceased husband and father. The trial court dismissed on the basis of Feres v. United States, 340 U.S. 135, 71 S.Ct. 153, 95 L.Ed. 152 (1950). The complaint alleges that the treatment evaluation and medical care given decedent by various army physicians and hospitals was “deficient, negligent and unwarranted, causing extreme pain, mental disorder and anguish” to deceased and his wife, and that “plaintiffs have suffered the loss of companionship, the loss of father’s ability to produce income and support to both plaintiffs, which are calculated in the amount of $884,000.”
Initially, we observe that the plaintiffs, in opposition to the Government’s motion to dismiss, contend Feres does not control because plaintiffs were not members of the Armed Forces at the time of the negligent act and the injuries received by both plaintiffs did not arise out of', or in the course of, activity incident to service because both plaintiffs were civilians at the time the injuries and damages were suffered. Plaintiffs contend that as wife and child of decedent they have a separate and independent cause of action for mental suffering and anguish under the Civil Code of Puerto Rico. 31 L.P.R.A. § 5141. See Commercial Union Insurance Company v. Gonzalez Rivera, 358 F.2d 480, 482-483. (C.A.5 1966). The mere fact that the cause of action is not derivative under local law, but is an original and distinct cause of action granted to the heirs and personal representatives to recover damages sustained by them by reason of the wrongful death of the decedent, does not remove it from the prohibition of Feres. Van Sickel v. United States, 285 F.2d 87 (C.A.9 1960); United States v. Lee, 400 F.2d 558 (C.A.9 1968), cert, denied, 393 U.S. 1053, 89 S.Ct. 691, 21 L.Ed.2d 695 (1969). In Feres, 340 U.S. at p. 143, 71 S.Ct. 153, the Supreme Court made it clear that an accident of geography would not be determinative of the applicable law. The controlling rule is that the Government is not liable under the Act “for injuries to servicemen where the injuries arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service,” Feres at p. 146, 71 S.Ct. at 159.
In the case at hand, the damage claim for loss of “companionship,” “father’s ability to produce income and support to both plaintiffs” is, under the allegations of the complaint, incident to decedent’s service. On this basis the trial court was fully justified in dismissing the complaint. However, we further note that in appellant’s brief and argument before this Court it is claimed that appellant wife “was present throughout the treatment and witnessed and suffered the grave consequences of the inadequate care given to her husband.” Although appellants’ prayer for damages refers only to “loss of companionship” and to loss of the decedent’s “ability to produce income,” appellants also apparently raise some claim of a separate and independent tort to the wife based on mental anguish arising from her observations of the inadequate care given her deceased husband. See Prosser, The Law of Torts, 181 (2d ed. 1955). Even if this claim were adequately specified and damages claimed therefor, we are satisfied that this allegation would not remove the incident-to-service limitation of Feres. We would be unwilling to depart therefrom even if we were able to do so. Cf. Hall v. United States, 451 F.2d 353 (1st Cir. 1971).
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: 0