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 "groups and associations". 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:
MISCELLANEOUS DRIVERS, HELPERS, HEALTH CARE AND PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNION LOCAL 610, affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America, Appellant, v. The KROGER CO., a corporation, Appellee.
No. 87-2430.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted May 12, 1988.
Decided Oct. 3, 1988.
Brian E. McGovern, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.
Thomas B. Weaver, St. Louis, Mo., for appellee.
Before FAGG, Circuit Judge, BRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge, and NICHOL, Senior District Judge.
The HONORABLE FRED J. NICHOL, Senior United States District Judge for the District of South Dakota, sitting by designation.
FAGG, Circuit Judge.
Miscellaneous Drivers, Helpers, Health Care and Public Employees Union Local 610 (the Union) appeals from the denial of its motion to recover a bond filed in support of an order restraining The Kroger Co. (Kroger). After dissolving the temporary restraining order (TRO), the district court denied the Union’s motion and awarded damages to Kroger. We reverse and remand with instructions to return the bond to the Union.
Kroger operated a warehouse and a number of stores in metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri. The Union represented the truck drivers employed by Kroger. When Kroger informed the Union that it planned to close the St. Louis warehouse and stores, the Union sought to grieve the closings under the parties’ collective bargaining agreement. In addition, the Union obtained a TRO restraining Kroger from closing the operations pending the outcome of the grievance proceedings.
After a grievance committee resolved the dispute in favor of Kroger, the district court dissolved the TRO. The Union then moved to recover the bond. Kroger resisted the Union’s motion and requested damages for the costs of continuing the St. Louis operations during the TRO. The district court denied the Union’s motion for recovery of the bond and awarded damages to Kroger in the amount of the bond.
Based on a careful review of the record, we conclude the parties’ collective bargaining agreement covered the labor dispute over the St. Louis closing. We believe the Union’s position was “sufficiently sound to prevent the [grievance proceedings] from being a futile endeavor.” Amalgamated Transit Union, Div. 1384 v. Greyhound Lines, Inc., 529 F.2d 1073, 1078 (9th Cir.), vacated and remanded, 429 U.S. 807, 97 S.Ct. 43, 50 L.Ed.2d 68 (1976), rev’d on other grounds, 550 F.2d 1237 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 837, 98 S.Ct. 127, 54 L.Ed.2d 99 (1977) (Greyhound Lines, Inc.)) see also, e.g., Nursing Home & Hosp. Union No. 434 v. Sky Vue Terrace, Inc., 759 F.2d 1094, 1098 n. 3 (3d Cir.1985). We also believe the district court correctly determined the closings would undermine the grievance proceedings. Thus, we are convinced the district court properly issued the TRO.
Turning to the Union’s claim it was entitled to recover the bond, we find no basis for the district court’s award of damages to Kroger. The district court was justified in issuing the TRO, and the Union’s loss on the merits of the grieved dispute is irrelevant to the correctness of the initial TRO decision. See Lever Bros. Co. v. International Chem. Workers Union, Local 217, 554 F.2d 115, 120 (4th Cir.1976); Greyhound Lines, Inc., 529 F.2d at 1079.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.

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

Choices:

Answer: 1