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:
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. EASTERN CONNECTICUT HEALTH SERVICES, INC., d/b/a New London Convalescent Home, Respondent. New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199, National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, AFL-CIO, Intervenor.
No. 1018, Docket 87-4004.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Argued March 24, 1987.
Decided April 8, 1987.
Barbara A. Atkin (Michael David Fox, of counsel, Rosemary M. Collyer, John E. Higgins, Jr., Robert E. Allens, Elliott Moore, Washington, D.C., on the brief), for petitioner.
Michael R. Miller (Kunkel & Miller, Sarasota, Fla., of counsel), for respondent.
Miriam L. Gafni (Freedman & Lorry, Philadelphia, Pa., of counsel), for inter-venor.
Before KAUFMAN, PIERCE and PRATT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:.
The National Labor Relations Board petitions for enforcement of its supplemental order dated September 30, 1986 requiring respondent Eastern Connecticut Health Services, Inc., owner of a nursing home in New London, Connecticut (the “employer”), to bargain with the entity now known as New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199, National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, AFL-CIO (the “union”).
While the employer’s defenses to the petition are numerous, each of them is plainly lacking in merit under settled precedent. Certainly, the employer has adduced no reasons which would suffice for us to overturn the “wide degree of discretion” that the Board enjoys in resolving representation matters. See NLRB v. A.J. Tower Co., 329 U.S. 324, 330, 67 S.Ct. 324, 327, 91 L.Ed. 322 (1946); NLRB v. Semco Printing Center, Inc., 721 F.2d 886, 892 (2d Cir.1983).
At the time of the certification election, the union was affiliated with the AFL-CIO through the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union and the nursing home was owned by a predecessor employer. Subsequently, the union changed its affiliation and is now affiliated with the AFL-CIO directly. The employer argues that as a result of this change there must be a new certification election.
Under the standards set forth by the Supreme Court in NLRB v. Financial Institution Employees Local 1182, 475 U.S. 192, 106 S.Ct. 1007, 89 L.Ed.2d 151 (1986) (“Sea-First”), the employer’s contention must be analyzed in two parts. First, there must be a finding that the union’s new affiliation “substantially change[d] a certified union’s relationship with the employees it represents.” If so, the second inquiry is whether “it is unclear whether a majority of employees continue to support the reorganized union,” id., 106 S.Ct. at 1013. In this case, the Board's detailed findings of fact following a hearing amply warrant its conclusion that the first part of this test has not been met here.
In any event, the facts alleged by the employer do not suffice to raise a substantial question as to the second part of the test. The employer complains that nonmembers of the union were not permitted to vote on the organizational changes. A union may properly limit voting on such questions to its members, Sea-First, 106 S.Ct. at 1014, 1017, and the fact that this may disenfranchise some of the employees of the bargaining unit is of no consequence; those employees were free to join the union if they wished to participate in its internal affairs.
Similarly, since the affiliation decision was primarily an internal matter for the union, id., 106 S.Ct. at 1015-16, no question of representation is raised by the union’s decision not to require unit-by-unit approval of the changes, or its delegation of parts of the process to its executive board. Neither these union procedures, nor any of the claimed irregularities in the way in which the referendum on the new affiliation was conducted, resulted in a denial of the essential elements of due process. Indeed, the record supports the finding of the Board that the union affirmatively sought to insure that all eligible workers wishing to vote had the opportunity to do so.
The employer’s next series of claims concerns its contention that “unusual circumstances”, in the form of alleged union misconduct, exist here and suffice to rebut the ordinary presumption that a union retains majority support for a year following certification. See Brooks v. NLRB, 348 U.S. 96, 98, 75 S.Ct. 176, 178, 99 L.Ed. 125 (1954); Glomac Plastics, Inc. v. NLRB, 592 F.2d 94, 98 n. 3 (2d Cir.1979). Particularly since the Board is entitled to view such claims with skepticism when made by employers rather than employees, see Retired Persons Pharmacy v. NLRB, 519 F.2d 486, 490 (2d Cir.1975), the instances of misconduct alleged by the employer — the brief occupation of an administrative office, and a single instance of assertedly illegal picketing — do not rise to the level of egregiousness which would warrant us in concluding that the Board abused its discretion in requiring the employer to bargain with the union.
The employer’s claim that there was such abuse is based on its contention that the instances of claimed union misconduct cost the union its majority support. Even if true, that allegation would not establish “unusual circumstances” justifying a refusal to bargain. See NLRB v. Lee Office Equipment, 572 F.2d 704, 706-07 (9th Cir. 1978).
The employer next makes several procedural attacks on the Board proceedings. None have merit. The Board’s decision to deny the employer intervention in the administrative proceedings while it was still only a prospective purchaser of the nursing home at issue was well within the Board’s authority.
Similarly, there was no abuse of discretion in holding that the employer was bound by a stipulation as to the appropriate bargaining unit entered into by its predecessor in interest. The bargaining obligations of successor employers are well established, see NLRB v. Cablevision Systems Development Co., 671 F.2d 737, 739 (2d Cir.1982), and the employer’s duties under an agreement voluntarily entered into by its predecessor are in no way diminished because the predecessor might arguably have litigated the matter successfully or because the employer assertedly could do so now. Accordingly, the Board was not required to provide an articulation of why the bargaining unit stipulated to by the employer’s predecessor met the standards laid down in contested cases.
Having examined each of the employer’s contentions, and finding all of them to be meritless, we hold that the Board is entitled to enforcement of its supplemental order.

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