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:
LOUISIANA SOUTHERN RY. CO. v. ANDERSON, CLAYTON & CO.
No. 13143.
United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.
Oct. 3, 1951.
Rehearing Denied Nov. 7, 1951.
St. Clair Adams, Jr., New Orleans, La.,, for appellant.
Geo. S. Wright, Dallas, Texas, J. Raburn Monroe, Nicholas Callan, New Orleans, La.,, for appellee.
Before HOLMES, BORAH, and RUSSELL, Circuit Judges.
RUSSELL, Circuit Judge.
The appellee, who, by our opinion, lost the fruits of the victory and judgment it had obtained in the trial Court, strenuously-insisted by motion for rehearing that our determination that there was, in the trial Court, no serious effort to establish the liability of the defendant-carrier as a common-carrier at common law evidenced a misconception and was erroneous. In support of this contention, appellee procured from the trial Court an order directing the transmittal of specified supplemental record to this Court to clarify the “difference [which] has arisen as to whether the record truly discloses what occurred in the District Court.” This “supplemental record” consists of a memorandum and the trial briefs of the parties, as well as excerpts from the oral argument of counsel at the conclusion of the trial, and a certificate from the official court reporter correcting an inaccuracy in his transcript. The complaint is not so much of error in our decision as in our refusal to adjudge “the independent liability of defendant as a common carrier.” The Court granted the motion for rehearing in order to give appropriate consideration to the complaint that a material question had not been decided, directing that such rehearing be upon briefs only. Upon consideration of the briefs of the parties, as well as the “supplemental record”, to which no objection has been made, (save that the appellant insists that the judgment of a trial Court must find support in fact and law rather than in mere argument), we perceive a basis for a different view of plaintiff’s contentions in the trial Court, and, accordingly, now consider the question whether the judgment in its favor is legally supported as predicated upon the independent liability of the switching carrier as a carrier in possession of an interstate shipment at the time of loss when measured by its common law liability.
As held in our original opinion, the switching carrier could not be held liable for antecedent loss for the provisions of the Newton Amendment to the Carmack Amendment of the Interstate Commerce Act evidences the Congressional intent “that a switching carrier should not be subjected to the liability for any antecedent loss or damage of either the initial, connecting, or delivering carrier.” [187 F.2d 910.] However, it is true, of course, that the common law liability of a carrier for a loss occurring on its own line is neither increased nor diminished by the statute, although it is equally true that in instances within the terms of the statute the initial or delivering carrier may be held liable for losses which do not so occur. However, as ruled by our original opinion, a switching carrier is not a “delivering carrier” subject to the statutory liability. That it is engaged in interstate transportation in engaging to make delivery for the last line-haul carrier does not, and can not, consistently with the statutory scheme, make it responsible for any loss or damage which does not occur while the goods are in its possession. A shipper who chooses to assert his claim for liability against such a switching carrier must, in order to recover, prove facts sufficient to establish the independent liability of such carrier.
What, then, without regard to the statute, is the independent liability of a switching carrier of an interstate shipment? We think the answer is plain and is made evident by the established principles, to which we have referred, that the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act, above referred to, neither increases nor diminishes the liability of a common carrier for a loss occurring on its own line. At common law the common carrier is held to strict accountability, being absolutely liable for loss or .damage for goods surrendered to its custody without regard to the exercise of due care, unless, of course, the damage flows from an excepted cause. “The duty of a common carrier is to transport and deliver safely. He is made, by law, an insurer against all failure to perform this duty, except such failure as may be caused by the public enemy, or by what is denominated the. act of God.” It was conceded in the trial Court that the provisions of the bills of lading under which the shipments moved were binding upon the switching carrier. The introduction in evidence of such bills of lading established a prima facie case of receipt by the switching carrier of the shipments in apparent good order. It was undisputed that the plaintiff was the owner of the cotton, that the cars containing it were delivered to the switching carrier, and that there was failure of delivery and delivery in damaged condition. As one of' its defenses, the carrier contended that the cotton must have been on fire at the time of delivery to it, but upon the trial, because of the absence of a witness by whom it was proposed to prove the “qualities of cotton”, this defense was expressly abandoned. Therefore, as against the prima facie case made by the plaintiff there was no remaining defense asserted except the carrier’s stipulated freedom from negligence. This was not, standing alone, sufficient to relieve the defendant-carrier from liability. We are asked to take judicial cognizance of the fact that cotton is not subject to spontaneous combustion 'and that the shipment must have contained “a fire-packed bale”. But in view of the fact that the defendant has already asserted the defense as one to be established by evidence and then expressly abandoned it, we are unwilling to set aside .the findings of the trial Court upon this ground. While, in some respects, the imposition of liability upon the defendant under 'the circumstances here present may seem to. present “a hard case”, such circumstances did not require the trial Court to find that the actual cause of the loss (the origin of the fire) occurred prior to the receipt of the shipment by the defendant. Especially is this so in view of the abandonment of this contention by the defendant.
The findings of fact and conclusions of law of the trial Court, when considered as made in adjudging the contention .that the defendant was liable for a loss occurring upon its own lines, as we now deem proper to so. view the judgment, find adequate support in law and in fact. Accordingly, in now ruling upon the question, which in our original opinion we declined to determine, that is, the independent liability of defendant as a common carrier, we withdraw our former judgment and here adjudge that the judgment of the trial Court should be, and the same is
Affirmed.
. Reported in 187 F.2d 908. Reference thereto will reveal the material facts in the case..
. We remark that appellee’s complaint of the Court’s directing it to be the mover by brief upon the argument is without merit since it was then the losing party in this Court.
. 49 U.S.C.A. | 20, subd. (11).
. Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U.S. 491, 33 S.Ct. 148, 57 L.Ed. 314; Cincinnati, New Orleans & Tex. Pac. Ry. Co. v. Rankin, 241 U.S. 319, 36 S.Ct. 555, 60 L.Ed. 1022; Cf. Reider v. Thompson, 339 U.S. 113, 119, 70 S.Ct. 499, 94 L.Ed. 698.
. Bank of Kentucky v. Adams Express Co., 93 U.S. 174, 181, 23 L.Ed. 872; Hall & Long v. The Railroad Companies, 13 Wall. 367, 372, 80 U.S. 367, 372, 20 L.Ed. 594; Commodity Credit Gorp. v. Norton, 3 Cir., 167 F.2d 161, 164, and citations; Acme Fast Freight v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P. R. Co., 2 Cir., 166 F.2d 778, and citations.
. Cf. Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co. v. C. C. Whitnack Produce Co., 258 U.S. 369, 372, 42 S.Ct. 328, 66 L.Ed. 665.

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