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:
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. William FREEDMAN, Appellant.
No. 26566.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
June 22, 1971.
Rehearing Denied July 15, 1971.
Burton Marks, of Marks, Sherman & London, Beverly Hills, Cal., for appellant.
James H. Bozarth, Asst. U. S. Atty. (argued), Robert L. Meyer, U. S. Atty., Alan H. Friedman, Asst. U. S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., Johnnie M. Walters, Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D. C., for appellee.
Before MERRILL, HUFSTEDLER and KILKENNY, Circuit Judges.
KILKENNY, Circuit Judge:
This is an appeal from an order of the district court denying appellant’s Rule 41(e), F.R.Crim.P., motions for the return of property wrongfully seized.
FACTS
Inasmuch as substantially all of the essential facts are stated in the opinion on the previous appeal, Freedman v. United States, 421 F.2d 1293 (9th Cir. 1970), we shall limit our statement to the bare essentials.
Following the seizure of appellant’s property in the criminal proceeding, including the $13,100.00 here in question, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, on December 23, 1968, caused an assessment to be made against the appellant for income taxes in the sum of $13,953.-50 for the taxable year ending December 17, 1968. On the same date, the Commissioner levied on the $13,100.00 previously seized in the criminal action, by serving a “Notice of Levy” on the United States Customs Service which was in possession of the money. On January 9, 1969, the Commissioner took possession of the $13,100.00, converted it into the form of a certified check and posted a credit in that amount to the account of the taxpayer. Rule 41(e) procedures for return of the money, and other property not here in question, were instituted by appellant on April 16th and April 22nd, 1969.
In the hearing on the remand from the previous appeal, the government agreed to a return of all of the properties, with the exception of the $13,100.-00, and three other items which it considered relevant as evidence in the criminal case. The district court for the Central District of California, in the exercise of its discretion, again referred the suppression motions to the Southern District of California, holding that there was sufficient connection between the four remaining items, including the $13,100.00 and the case in the Southern District, to warrant such action. The district court for the Southern District denied taxpayer’s motions as to the items other than $13,100.00 and referred the motions on that item back to the Central District. On May 1,1970, the appellant was convicted in the Southern District of the crime of conspiracy to violate the narcotics laws, 21 U.S.C. §§ 173, 174. Appellant then renewed his motion in the Central District for the return of the $13,100.00. There, as here, the government contended that appellant’s Rule 41(e) procedures were only a camouflage, and that they, in fact, were actions for a refund of the tax assessed by the Commissioner. That being so, and since appellant did not file a claim for a refund or for a credit with the Commissioner pursuant to the provisions of 26 U.S.C. § 7422(a), the district court held that it had no power to proceed. We agree.
CONCLUSIONS
Regardless of form, an absolute prerequisite to the maintenance of such an action is the filing of a claim for refund or for a credit pursuant to § 7422(a). Thompson v. United States, 308 F.2d 628, 634 (9th Cir.1962); Owen v. United States, 277 F.2d 790 (9th Cir. 1960). The fact that the seizure of the fund may have been illegal is of no significance. Ginsberg v. United States, 408 F.2d 1016, 1017, fn. 1 (9th Cir. 1969); Simpson v. Thomas, 271 F.2d 450 (4th Cir. 1959); Field v. United States, 263 F.2d 758 (5th Cir. 1959), cert. denied 360 U.S. 918, 79 S.Ct. 1436, 3 L.Ed.2d 1534 (1959); Welsh v. United States, 95 U.S.App.D.C. 93, 220 F.2d 200 (1955). The salient facts in Field are indistinguishable from those before us. In accord, under a similar state of facts, is Carlo v. United States, 286 F.2d 841, 849 (2d Cir. 1961), cert. denied 366 U.S. 944, 81 S.Ct. 1672, 6 L.Ed.2d 855 (1961). Both Field and Carlo are cited with approval in the footnote to Ginsberg.
The lower court assumed that the original seizure was unlawful, but denied relief on the theory that the validity of the levy for income taxes had to be tested in procedures properly prosecuted under the Internal Revenue Laws. In the arguments before us, the government claimed no right to retain the money on the basis of its original seizure and conceded that appellant would be entitled to a return in appropriate proceedings, of so much of the fund as might not be subject to the tax levy. (All or any part). Accordingly, we so hold.
This holding exhausts the subject matter of the present litigation. We leave open to the appellant all issues surrounding the propriety of the tax levy with the right to pursue such other remedies as may be available to him for a determination of the validity of such levy.
Affirmed.
. Section 7422(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1