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 respondents in the case that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the respondent is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

Opinion:
In re BATAVIA METAL PRODUCTS, Inc. FILBEN MFG. CO., Inc., v. BATAVIA METAL PRODUCTS, Inc.
No. 9389.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Feb. 28, 1948.
Harry Shriman and Schwartz, Allen & Shriman, all of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
J. H. Schwartz and Norman H. Nachman, and Schwartz and Cooper, all of Chicago, Ill., for appellee.
Before SPARKS, MAJOR, and MIN-TON, Circuit Judges.
MINTON, Circuit Judge.
On November 1, 1945, the alleged bankrupt, hereinafter referred to as the debtor, entered into a license agreement with the appellant by the terms of which the latter licensed the debtor to manufacture and sell certain automatic phonographs. The license agreement is not in the record. It does not appear when the bankruptcy proceedings were instituted, but subsequent thereto, on August 30, 1946, an infringement suit was filed in the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against the debtor by Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation in which it claimed the infringement of certain patents owned by it. Thereafter, the appellant filed a petition in the bankruptcy proceedings to terminate the license agreement, which the referee accordingly did.
On February 20, 1947, the debtor filed a verified petition in the bankruptcy proceedings setting up the fact of the pendency of the infringement suit, apparently growing out of the uses made of the patents, pursuant to the license agreement with the appellant. The petition also set forth the cancellation of the license agreement by the appellant and the discontinuance of the manufacture and sale of the automatic phonographs, and an agreement with the attorneys for Rock-Ola for the entrance of a consent decree in the infringement suit, with a waiver of damages and accounting, but with the usual restraining orders, each party to pay his own costs. The petition also prayed that the debtor be authorized to settle and dispose of the infringement suit on that basis. No one appeared in opposition to this petition or filed any pleadings in answer thereto. The prayer of the debtor was granted, and an order authorizing the disposition of the infringer ment suit was entered after a consideration of the verified petition and the statement and argument of counsel. The order recited the filing of the petition and statement of counsel that the debtor had ceased the manufacture and sale of the automatic phonographs involved in the patent suit and recited further that prior to the institution of the proceedings the debtor had manufactured and sold the automatic phonographs by virtue of the license agreement with the appellant, which license agreement had been cancelled; that due notice of the filing of the debtor’s petition had been given to all of the parties in interest; and it - was ordered that the officers of the debtor be authorized to enter into the consent decree with the usual restraining orders; and “that there shall be no accounting between the parties, the claim of plaintiff in said action for profits and damages to be waived as to any infringing sale or use prior hereto, Batavia to have the right to make non-infringing sales of parts and accessories of the phonograph now on hand and that each party to said patent action shall pay its own costs.”
A petition to review this orde r was filed by the appellant, and the objecdons asserted therein were that on the hearing of the petition of the debtor for authority to settle the infringement suit, the debtor’s counsel represented, apparently truthfully, that prior to the institution of the infringement suit the debtor had manufactured a substantial quantity of parts and materials for the assembly of the automatic phonographs which were assets of the debtor’s estate and of substantial value, and if sold as scrap, these assets would have only a nominal value, and that under the terms of the proposed consent decree grave doubt would exist as to the rights of the debtor to dispose of these materials except as scrap; secondly, the petition complained that there was no allegation in the pleading, nor was any evidence introduced, to support the recital in the order sought to be reviewed that the debtor had manufactured and sold automatic phonographs by virtue of the license agreement with the appellant; thirdly, that the appellant had also been sued for infringement by Rock-Ola in the District Court of Minnesota, although infringement of what does not appear, that a declaratory judgment was there sought against the appellant, that the adjudication of that suit would dispose of the issues in the infringement suit herein, and that the debtor knew of this suit and did not inform the referee or the District Court of it; and that the appellant as a creditor of the debtor is aggrieved and the debtor’s estate jeopardized and injured by the order.
The District Court denied the petition to review and confirmed the referee’s order. This appeal is from this order of the District Court.
The appellant’s objections seem frivolous to us. As to the first, namely, the likelihood that the District Court’s proposed consent decree may not permit the valuable materials of the debtor’s estate to be sold except as scrap. It is contended that under the proposed consent decree grave doubts would arise as to the rights of the debtor to dispose of the materials except as scrap. The short answer to that is that we do not know whether there is a basis for such grave doubt or not, as a copy of the proposed consent decree is not in the record, and no proceeding is now before us authorizing the sale of the materials as scrap. It will be time enough to meet that when the issue is presented. We cannot assume that the District Court would authorize a disposition of valuable assets except in the interest of the debtor’s estate.
As to the second proposition, that manufacture and sale of the automatic phonographs were made before the institution of the bankruptcy proceedings. True, in the verified petition of the debtor for authority to enter the consent decree there is no allegation to support the referee’s finding. We do not know what counsel represented to the referee on the presentation of the said petition that might have given support to the recital in the order. The recital is not necessary to support any part of the court’s order. It may be treated as surplusage. In any event, such recital, if unsupported, was not harmful and did not adversely affect the debtor’s estate, and that is all the referee had to consider. Whatever rights the appellant had in the estate were in the appellant’s claim for money damages. The consent decree did not authorize any money judgment for any sum against the debtor. It did not shrink the debtor’s estate one cent. The debtor had nothing to lose by abiding by the order except its freedom to manufacture and sell, pursuant to the license agreement. The debtor had already ceased such manufacture and sale, and the appellant by its affirmative action had terminated the license agreement.
It needs no argument to demonstrate that the third contention of the appellant is without merit. The debtor owed no duty to the appellant to protect it in the infringement suit in Minnesota or to inform the referee or the District Court that such suit was pending. The debtor was not a party to that suit. The referee’s concern, and that of the District Court, was only to see that the debtor’s estate was protected and by so doing protect all of the creditors. Whether an infringement suit against the debtor shall be settled by a consent decree, with a waiver of damages and accounting, requires the exercise of discretion by the referee and the District Court, and their determination cannot be disturbed here, in the absence of a clear showing of an abuse of such discretion. In re Kansas City Journal-Post Co., 8 Cir., 144 F.2d 816, 817, 818; In re Anderson Thorson & Co., 7 Cir., 125 F.2d 325; Scott et al. v. Jones, 10 Cir., 118 F.2d 30, 32; In re Riggi Bros. Co. Inc., 2 Cir., 42 F.2d 174, 176. On this record, we cannot see how the court could be guilty of an abuse of discretion in authorizing a consent decree by the debtor which enjoined the debt- or from doing only what it had already ceased doing. It is even more difficult to see how the appellant, a creditor who had helped to bring about such cessation, could be aggrieved.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.

Question: What is the total number of respondents in the case that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 0