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:
SKOWHEGAN SAV. BANK et al. v. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION et al.
No. 11300.
United 'States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued Oct. 27, 1952.
Decided Dec. 22, 1952.
George S. Van Schaick, Rochester, N. Y., pro hac vice, by special leave of Court, with whom Martin A. Meyer, Jr., and Harry E. Proctor, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for petitioners.
Roger S. Foster, General Counsel, Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, D. C., with whom Alexander Cohen, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for respondent.
Leonard A. Pierce, Portland, Me., with whom Charles 13. Rugg, Boston, Mass., and Everett H. Maxcy, Augusta, Me., were on the brief, for intervenor.
Before CLARK, PRETTYMAN and WASHINGTON, Circuit Judges.
PRETTYMAN, Circuit Judge.
This is a petition to review two orders of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
By an agreement made in 1912 the Portland Railroad Company leased all of its property to the predecessor of the Central Maine Power Company. The lessee Power Company agreed, among other things, to pay an annual rental equivalent to interest on the debt of the Railroad plus a dividend of $5.00 per share on the Railroad’s stock,, and to deliver to the Railroad at the termination of the lease, in condition not inferior to that existing at the date of the lease, all of the property leased. By 1944 the Power Company owned approximately 36 per cent of the Railroad’s outstanding bonds and 49 per cent of its stock. In that year, pursuant to Section 11(e) of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, the Power Company filed with the Commission a plan to divest itself of the Railroad in compliance with Section 11(b) of the Act. The plan contemplated, among other things, the termination of the lease, the sale of the Railroad’s assets, the redemption of the bonds held by persons other than the Power Company, and the distribution of a liquidating dividend of $110.00' per share to all stockholders of the Railroad other than the Power Company. The Power Company was to supply the funds necessary to meet those terms. The plan was detailed and comprehensive, but in view of our disposition of the case we need not here describe-it further.
A hearing was had by the Commission on the proposed plan. Six savings banks in the State of Maine, including our present petitioners, participated in the hearing as stockholders of the Railroad. No one questioned the necessity of divestment under the Act. Their representative stated that they felt that the price of $110.00 a share was inadequate, that they did not wish to obstruct the liquidation of- the Company if liquidation was in the public interest, but that they insisted upon adequate compensation for the vested rights which they held under the lease. He further stated that his clients had no objection to the proposed treatment of the bonds. On December'19, 1944, the Commission han'ded down its findings, opinion and order, in which it found the plan to' be necessary to effectuate the provisions of the Act and fair and equitable to the persons affected. It accordingly approved the plan'.
In respect to the proposed payment to the Railroad’s stockholders, the Commission made a computation. It discounted the $5.00 per share dividend for 66 years (the then remaining life of the lease) at a 4 per cent rate, arriving at a then-present value of about $116.00 per share. It then discounted that figure on account of certain ambiguities in the lease which affected the guaranty of the dividend. It thus arrived at a figure of $110.00 per share as a fair and equitable figure.
In respect to the claimed value to the stockholders of the reversion of a going transportation system at the end of the lease, the Commission pointed out that annual net earnings forseeable in the year 2011 • (the expiration of the lease) in an amount equal to current earnings in 1911 (the execution of the lease), or even a much larger amount, had a present value of only a few cents a share. It therefore considered this reversionary right to be of insignificant value.
Having made these findings the Commission observed: “In addition it may be noted that any stockholders dissenting from the proposed plan will have a right, pursuant to Maine statute, to have their stock appraised.” In its report to the stockholders pursuant to Section 11(g) of the Act, the Commission included this statement:
“The security holders of Portland have the right under Maine laws to have their stock appraised and receive an amount for their stock based on such appraisal. Although this Commission has found the plan fair and equitable, whether or not any security holder should vote in favor of the plan or choose to exercise his rights under the appraisal statute or by other means should be determined by his independent judgment.”
Some stockholders, including petitioners, filed a bill in equity in the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, in which they sought not an appraisal of their stock under the Maine appraisal statute but to have the entire transaction set aside. Other stockholders filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit a petition for review of the order of the Commission under Section 24(a) of the Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 79x(a), but that action was later dismissed on motion of those petitioners. After lengthy litigation in the Maine courts the appellate court held, upon authority of Schwabacher v. United States, that the state courts had no jurisdiction in respect of matters which the 'Commission had found fair and equitable and so had no jurisdiction to reexamine, among other things, the sum to be paid for the Railroad stock. Petition for certiorari was denied.
Thereafter, on May 1, 1950, our present petitioners sought reconsideration by the Commission of its original report and order of December 19, 1944. On November 28, 1951, the Commission handed down its decision on that petition. It considered the various contentions of the petitioners at some length and denied the petition. It then said:
“After careful consideration, we find nothing in the arguments presented, the facts alleged and the record heretofore made before us which would cause us to find that the $110 per share approved by us for the public holders of Portland’s common stock was not fair and equitable, and we are satisfied that our Order of December 19, 1944 in this matter should not be disturbed. We have examined all other contentions of petitioners contained in their brief and find them to be without merit.”
The present petition in this court is for review of the order of November 28, 1951, and also of the order of December 19, 1944.
The sixty days after entry of the 1944 order, allowed by the statute (Section 24 (a) ) for the filing of a petition for review, has of course long since expired. Petitioners argue, however, that the 1951 order reopened the matter sufficiently to give them another sixty days within which to file the petition. We think that the 1951 order cannot be so construed.
Petitioners insist that the finding of the Commission in 1944 in respect to the $110.00 payment per share was conditioned upon the right of appraisal in the Maine courts. They argue that therefore, when the Commission in 1951 affirmed the payment without the condition, it amended the 1944 order. We do not read the 1944 finding as a conditional finding. The Commission made a careful computation and specifically found $110.00 to be the fair and equitable amount to be paid the stockholders. Its reference to the Maine appraisal statute was in the nature of an advisory note. That any such right of appraisal may have been negated or placed in doubt by subsequent court decisions did not create invalidity in the finding of the fair and equitable value. In its 1951 opinion the Commission did no- more than examine with care the petitioners’ contentions of injustice in the 1944 order. As we have noted, a petition to review that order was filed in the First Circuit and then voluntarily dismissed. Petitioners had their opportunity, in due time, to- test the order in a federal court. The plan approved by the Commission in 1944 has long since been consummated, all other shareholders of the Railroad have been paid, and the business of the Railroad has ceased.
The 1944 order is not now appealable in and of itself. The petition for reconsideration, and its denial, even after extended discussion, could not serve to- enlarge the statutory period for appeal. The denial of reconsideration is not in and of itself appealable under the statute. Even if we thought we had a measure of authority in respect to review of a denial of reconsideration involving an alleged abuse of discretion, we would not exercise it in this case. The composite o-f the circumstances, the length of the elapsed time, the course followed at the critical time in regard to federal court review, the absence of applications for stay at any point, the completion of the plan, negate any such proposal; indeed petitioners seem not to claim any abuse of discretion.
The petition for review is
Dismissed.
. 49 Stat. 822, 15 U.S.C.A. § 79k(e).
. Auburn Sav. Bank v. Portland R. R. Co., 1949, 144 Me. 74, 65 A.2d 17.
. 1948, 334 U.S. 182, 68 S.Ct. 958, 92 L.Ed. 1305.
. Auburn Savings Bank v. Portland Railroad Co., 1949, 338 U.S. 831, 70 S.Ct. 74, 94 L.Ed. 506.

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: 99