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:
SOUTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY, Appellant, v. David W. HUTCHINGS, a Minor, by Next Friend, James H. Hutchings, Appellee.
No. 14076.
United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.
April 11, 1961.
O’Sullivan, Circuit Judge, dissented.
Clyde W. Key, Knoxville, Tenn. (Key & Lee, Knoxville, Tenn., on the brief), for appellant.
H. Calvin Walter, Knoxville, Tenn., for appellee.
Before McALLISTER, Chief Judge, and MARTIN and O’SULLIVAN, Circuit Judges.
MARTIN, Circuit Judge.
The Southern Railway Company has appealed from a judgment for $10,000 entered on a jury verdict for the appellee, David W. Hutchings, a twelve-year-old boy. The jury award was for personal injuries resulting from the boy’s being struck by a step protruding from a caboose of one of the appellant’s freight trains.
The issue presented is whether appellant was entitled, on the evidence, to a directed verdict in the district court. It is the contention of the Railway Company that the plaintiff failed to make a case for the jury under the Tennessee Statutory Precautions Act. Section 65-1208(4), Tennessee Code Annotated, the applicable section, provides that each railroad shall cause its crews to be always on the lookout ahead; and that if any person, animal, or other obstruction, “appears upon the road, the alarm whistle shall be sounded, the brakes put down, and every possible means employed to stop the train and prevent an accident.”
The question to be answered is whether there was any evidence upon which the jurors as reasonable persons could fina that the appellee appeared as an “obstruction upon the road” ahead of the train, within the meaning of the Statutory Precautions Act. It is undisputed that the crew of the train took none of the steps required by the Act. Therefore, if evidence was introduced from which the jury could reasonably find that the boy was an obstruction upon the track, then under the Act, since its provisions were not met, there would be no doubt of the railroad’s liability.
After careful consideration of the testimony, we think that there is substantial evidence from which the jury could have found that the boy was an obstruction upon the road within the meaning of the Act; and that it is proper for the case to have been submitted to the jury.
The Tennessee authorities, which are controlling, have defined what is meant by an “obstruction.” In Preslar v. Mobile and Ohio R. Co., 1916, 135 Tenn. 42, 185 S.W. 67, it is stated that such an obstruction must be “within the sweep of the train”; and, in Gaines v. Tennessee Central Railroad Co., 1940, 175 Tenn. 389, 135 S.W.2d 441, the Supreme Court of Tennessee held that such “obstruction” must be an object appearing on the track in front of a moving train, or so near the track that the object will be struck by the moving train. This court held likewise in Louisville & Nashville R. R. v. Farmer, 6 Cir., 1955, 220 F.2d 90. It was the plaintiff-appellee’s burden, moreover, to show that he had become an obstruction ahead of the train where he could have been observed by the train’s crew.
In Gajda v. Reick-McJunkin Dairy Co., 6 Cir., 18 F.2d 279, 280, our court thus stated its position in considering the propriety of a directed verdict for the defendant: “In determining the propriety of the directed verdict for defendant, we must take that view of the evidence, and the inferences reasonably and justifiably to be drawn therefrom, most favorable to the plaintiff, and determine whether or not, under the law, a verdict might be found for the plaintiff. * * * Neither we nor the trial judge can rightly pass upon conflicting testimony, or determine the credibility or preponderance thereof.” This rule has been repeatedly recognized.
In the instant case, it is true that there is no testimony which clearly and unequivocally places the boy on the track. Nor does the testimony in terms of feet and inches place him “within the sweep of the train.” However, it is our opinion that the testimony of David Hutchings, “and the inferences reasonably and justifiably to be drawn therefrom,” constitute evidence from which reasonable men could find that David was so near the track that he would have been struck by the moving train and, therefore, was “within the sweep of the train.”
David testified that he was going up the path by the tracks as the train was coming down toward him. This places him in front of the train. The path is right beside the crossties. From photographs in evidence, it appears that the path is bordered on one side by thick and high undergrowth and on the other by the crossties. This would confine the boy, while on the path, to an area immediately next to the track. We think it is not an unreasonable inference that the jury could have found, in reaching a verdict for the plaintiff, that, at the time the train was coming down toward him and at a time when the crew by the exercise of due care should have seen him, the lad was actually within such proximity to the track itself that he would have been struck by the moving train.
The record contains conflicting evidence, especially in the testimony of the train crew. However, in considering an appeal on the question of the propriety of the denial of a directed verdict, it is not the province of the court to consider the weight or preponderance of the evidence. In such posture, the function of the appellate court is to consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. This being true, the case should have been submitted to the jury under appropriate instructions — the course followed by the district judge.
Accordingly, the judgment entered on the verdict of the jury is affirmed.

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: 1