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:
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. HI-TEMP, INC., et al., Respondents. PRODUCTION WORKERS UNION LOCAL 10, etc., Petitioner, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent. HI-TEMP, INC., et al., Petitioners, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent.
Nos. 73-2022 to 73-2024.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Argued Sept. 9, 1974.
Decided Oct. 10, 1974.
Peter G. Nash, Gen. Counsel, Richard A. Cohen, Atty., N.L.R.B., Washington, D. C., Peter J. Hurtgen, Washington, D. C., for N.L.R.B.
Arnold E. Charnin, Chicago, 111., for intervenor.
George E. Preonas, Chicago, 111., Sherman M. Carmell and William A. Wid-mer, III, Chicago, 111., for Hi-Temp and Production Workers Union Local 10.
Before SWYGERT, Chief Judge, CASTLE, Senior Circuit Judge, and CUMMINGS, Circuit Judge.
CASTLE, Senior Circuit Judge.
The National Labor Relations Board petitions this Court to enforce its order against Hi-Temp, Inc., Tru Temp, Inc., and Steel Treating, Inc. (“the Company”), and against the Production Workers Union, Local 10, AFL-CIO (“the Production Workers” or “the Union”) for violations of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 151 et seq. (1970).
The Company is composed of three affiliated corporations comprising an integrated business enterprise. In December 1971, the Production Workers instituted a campaign to organize the Company’s employees. Two of its organizers visited employees’ homes and secured signatures on Production Workers authorization cards. The United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO (“the Steelworkers”), who previously had attempted to organize the Company’s employees and failed, protested this encroachment on its “territory,” and began another drive for employee support.
Subsequently, the Production Workers demanded recognition, and the Company agreed to a card check to determine if a majority of the Company’s employees had signed Production Workers authorization cards. The card count established that forty-six of the eighty-six employees signed cards for the Production Workers. Although during the card count the Company received and read a letter from the Steelworkers expressing their continuing organizational interest in the Company’s employees, the Company, on the basis of the card check, recognized the Production Workers on January 19, 1972, and on February 25, 1972, agreed to a collective bargaining contract containing union-security and check-off clauses.
The NLRB determined, however, that the forty-six cards accepted as a basis for the Production Workers’ majority status included cards signed by eight employees who had also signed authorization cards for the 'Steelworkers. The Board, therefore, excluded these eight “dual” cards from the Production Workers’ total, and the remaining thirty-eight valid cards were insufficient to establish majority status. Accordingly, the Board found that the Company, by recognizing and contracting with a minority union, had violated Sections 8(a)(2) and 8(a) (3) of the Act, and that the Union had correspondingly violated Sections 8(b)(1)(A) and 8(b)(2).
The Company and the Production Workers contest the Board’s conclusion that the Union was a minority union at the time of recognition on January 19. They argue that the evidence demonstrates that six of the eight employees who signed both Production Workers and Steelworkers cards signed their Steelworkers cards after the date of the recognition agreement. If those cards were in fact signed after January 19, then the Union had majority status at the time of recognition and the Act would not be violated. We are satisfied, however, that there is substantial evidence on the record considered as a whole to support the Board’s conclusion. Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951).
The Company and Union rely on testimony that Luis Torres, one of the eight signers of dual cards, signed his Steelworkers card at a Sunday meeting with Steelworkers’ organizer Alicea, and that he signed his Production Workers card (dated January 17, a Monday) several days before the Steelworkers card. The Company and Union, therefore, assert that Torres actually signed his Steelworkers card on Sunday, January 23, four days after the recognition agreement was signed, and that his card and the cards which he subsequently passed out to his fellow employees were backdated.
It is true that Torres and Alicea testified that the signing took place on a Sunday, and it is apparently uneontested that Torres signed his Production Workers card on January 17. Torres also testified, however, that he signed both the Steelworkers card and the Production Workers card on the same day — Monday, January 17. In addition, employees Portillo, Samano, Marquina, and Castrejon, who also signed dual cards, testified that Torres gave them Steelworkers cards at work on Monday evening, January 17. Portillo, Samano, and Marquina also testified that they signed their cards that same night, while Castrejon stated that he took his home and signed it the following day. Since it is undisputed that Torres did not distribute the other Steelworkers cards until after he had signed his own, the testimony of Torres and his fellow employees amply supports the Board’s finding that Torres and his co-workers signed their Steelworkers cards prior to January 19, and that on that date the Production Workers were a minority union.
The Company and the Union next claim that even if the eight employees executed both authorization cards prior to recognition, the Board erred in excluding the dual cards in determining the majority status of the Production Workers. They argue that the cards should be counted because the Company acted in good faith and had no knowledge of the Steelworkers’ organizational activities. We cannot agree.
In NLRB v. Fishermen’s & Allied Workers’ Union, Local 33, 483 F.2d 952 (9th Cir. 1973) and Intaleo Aluminum Corp. v. NLRB, 417 F.2d 36 (9th Cir. 1969), authorization cards of employees who had signed cards both for the union seeking recognition and for a competing union were excluded in ascertaining majority status, the underlying rationale being that such cards do not reflect a clear and unambiguous selection of a collective bargaining representative. In Playskool, Inc. v. NLRB, 477 F.2d 66, 71 (7th Cir. 1973), we did not question the applicability of that procedure.
Although in those cases there may have been knowledge of organizational activities which would cast doubt on the employer’s good faith recognition of the union asserting a card majority, we find an employer’s good faith to have no effect on the exclusion of the dual cards, because it is employer support of a minority union that the Act condemns. International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, AFL-CIO v. NLRB, 366 U.S. 731, 81 S.Ct. 1603, 6 L.Ed.2d 762 (1961). The Supreme Court held in International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, supra, at 738-739, 81 S.Ct. at 1608, that:
To countenance such an excuse [of good faith] would place in permissibly •careless employer and union hands the power to completely frustrate employee realization of the premise of the Act — that its prohibitions will go far to assure freedom of choice and majority rule in employee selection of representatives. We find nothing in the statutory language prescribing scienter as an element of the unfair labor practices here involved. The act made unlawful by § 8(a)(2) is employer support of a minority union. Here that support is an accomplished fact. More need not be shown, for, even if mistakenly, the employees’ rights have been invaded. It follows that prohibited conduct cannot be excused by a showing of good faith. [Footnotes omitted.]
The Board, therefore, properly excluded the eight dual cards regardless of the Company’s good faith, and correctly found that the Company and Union violated the Act.
Finally, the Company and the Union, relying on Intaleo Aluminum Corp., supra, challenge that portion of the Board’s order requiring them jointly and severally to reimburse the Company’s employees for all dues or fees paid to the Union pursuant to the union-security and check-off clauses of the February 25 collective bargaining agreement. We find the Board’s order to be proper.
Pursuant to Section 10(c), the Board has been accorded broad authority to fashion remedies to effectuate the policies of the Act. NLRB v. District 50, UMW, 355 U.S. 453, 468, 78 S.Ct. 386, 2 L.Ed.2d 401 (1958); NLRB v. Link-Belt Co., 311 U.S. 584, 600, 61 S.Ct. 358, 85 L.Ed. 368 (1941). One policy as declared in Sections 1, 7, and 9 is that employees have complete and unfettered freedom to select by majority rule their collective bargaining representative. Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. NLRB, 319 U.S. 533, 589, 63 S.Ct. 1214, 87 L.Ed. 1568 (1943); NLRB v. Link-Belt Co., supra, 311 U.S. at 588, 61 S.Ct. 358. Thus, in Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. NLRB, supra, the Court upheld a reimbursement order of the Board where a company-dominated union received funds pursuant to a union security agreement on the ground that the employees were supporting a union not of their own free choice. The Court stated :
The result [of the union-security and check-off clauses] was that the employees . . . had to authorize wage deductions for dues to remain members . . ., and they had to remain members to retain their jobs. Thus, as a price of employment they were required by the Company to support an illegal organization which foreclosed their rights to freedom of organization and collective bargaining. To hold that the Board is without power here to order reimbursement of the amounts so exacted is to hold that an employer is free to fasten firmly upon his employees the cost of maintaining an organization by which he effectively defeats the free exercise of their rights to self-organization and collective bargaining. That this may pervert the purpose of the Act is clear. [Footnote omitted.]
Id. 319 U.S. at 540, 63 S.Ct. at 1219.
Here there is no company-dominated union. Nonetheless, when a minority union is recognized in violation of § 8(a)(2) of the Act, and in accordance with union-security and check-off provisions employees are forced to support and contribute to that union to retain their jobs, we believe the employees’ freedom to select and support a collective bargaining representative of their own choosing is similarly defeated, regardless of the employer’s intentions. The Board’s remedial order effectuates the policy of the Act because it fully restores the employees’ freedom to select and support only that union which has achieved majority status. Virginia Electric & Power Co. v. NLRB, supra; Sheraton-Kauai Corp. v. NLRB, 429 F.2d 1352, 1357-1358 (9th Cir. 1970).
The Company and the Union rely on statements by the Court in International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, supra, 366 U.S. at 740, 81 S.Ct. at 1608, that when an employer violates § 8(a),(2), the employer is subject only to a “remedial order requiring him to conform his conduct to the norms set out in the Act. No further penalty results.” That reliance is misplaced because there the contract did not contain union-seeu-rity clauses, and the Court did not have before it a dues reimbursement remedy.
The petition for enforcement is granted.
Enforced.
. 29 U.S.C. §§ 158(a)(2), (a)(3) (1970) provide in part:
(a) It shall be an unfair labor practice for-an employer—
(2) to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it. .
(3) by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization.
. 29 U.S.C. §§ 158(b)(1)(A), (b)(2) (1970) provide in part:
(b) It shall be an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents—
(1) to restrain or coerce (A) employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 157 of this title. .
(2) to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an employee in violation of subsection (a) (3) of this section.
. Of the six employees whose dual card signings are contested, only Marquez was unavailable to testify. Steelworkers’ organizer Alicea testified, however, that Marquez signed the Steelworkers card in his presence on Monday, January 17, and the card bears that date.

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: 3