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:
Gene ALBRIGHT and Bettie J. Page, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. The GOOD SHEPHERD HOSPITAL, dba Good Shepherd Medical Center and The Board of Trustees of the Good Shepherd Hospital, Defendants-Appellants.
No. 89-2279
Summary Calendar.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
April 16, 1990.
John M. Smith, Harbour, Smith, Harris & Cammack, Longview, Tex., Erin E. Lunee-ford, Wood, Luckinger & Epstein, Houston, Tex., Hugh M. Smith, Glen Rose, Tex., for defendants-appellants.
Larry R. Daves, San Antonio, Tex., for plaintiffs-appellees.
Before REAVLEY, KING and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Defendants The Good Shepherd Hospital and its Board of Trustees (collectively “Good Shepherd”) appeal a judgment awarding attorney’s fees and expenses to plaintiffs Gene Albright and Bettie J. Page under 42 U.S.C. § 1988. We vacate the award and remand.
I.
Albright initiated this case by suing Good Shepherd under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for damages resulting from his termination as Personnel Director of Good Shepherd and his subsequent arrest by the Longview Police Department for distributing leaflets on hospital property. His claims were consolidated with those of Page, who sought damages under state law, Title VII, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981 for her alleged wrongful termination from Good Shepherd. A jury returned a verdict and an award of damages for each plaintiff. Additionally, the district court found that Good Shepherd had discriminated against Page on the basis of race, in violation of section 1981 and Title VII, and awarded back pay, reinstatement, and accommodations at work for a shoulder injury. Albright v. Longview Police Dep't, 884 F.2d 835, 837-38 (5th Cir.1989). The district court subsequently awarded Page and Albright, who were represented by the same attorney, $74,012.95 in attorney’s fees and $2,342.01 in expenses, as prevailing parties under 42 U.S.C. § 1988. The award did not delineate which portion was attributable to each plaintiff’s case.
On appeal of the merits, a Fifth Circuit panel reversed the judgment for Albright’s section 1983 claim and remanded for consideration of Albright’s false arrest claim under state tort law. Id. at 841-43. However, the panel affirmed the judgment for Page on her state and federal claims. Id. at 844. Good Shepherd now appeals the award of attorney’s fees and costs, pointing out that to recover attorney’s fees under section 1988 one must prevail under an applicable federal statute. Since Albright’s section 1983 claim was reversed, Good Shepherd contends that he is no longer entitled to attorney’s fees and that the award must be vacated and remanded for apportionment. We agree.
II.
The Civil Rights Attorney’s Fee Statute provides in relevant part:
In any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of sections 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, and 1986 of this title, ... the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.
42 U.S.C. § 1988. To obtain attorney’s fees under this statute, a litigant must be a “prevailing party.” Davis v. West Community Hosp., 755 F.2d 455, 468 (5th Cir.1985). Although qualification is not contingent upon prevailing on all claims, see Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 434-35, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1939-40, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983), a litigant must “receive at least some relief on the merits of his claim before he can be said to prevail,” Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U.S. 755, 760, 107 S.Ct. 2672, 2675, 96 L.Ed.2d 654 (1987).
Albright clearly does not meet this requirement. Judgment on his federal claim has been reversed and therefore cannot support the award. See Harris v. Pirch, 677 F.2d 681, 689 (8th Cir.1982). His only possible basis for recovery is state tort law, which cannot provide grounds for a section 1988 attorney’s fee award when all federal claims have been rejected on the merits. McDonald v. Doe, 748 F.2d 1055, 1057 (5th Cir.1984); cf. Heath v. Brown, 807 F.2d 1229, 1233 (5th Cir.1987) (pendent state law claims can support the recovery of attorney’s fees under section 1988 when the court has avoided a substantial constitutional claim in the ease). Accordingly, the attorney’s fee award must be adjusted to reflect the fact that Page was the sole plaintiff to prevail under federal law.
Plaintiffs seek to avoid apportionment by pointing out that the Supreme Court does not require a fee reduction merely because all claims are not successful. See Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435, 103 S.Ct. at 1940. They then claim that the entire award should be affirmed on the ground that their claims “involve[d] a common core of facts.” Id. Plaintiffs seek to establish factual commonality by pointing to (1) the joinder of the two cases; and (2) Albright’s assertion that he was fired for assisting a group of nursing supervisors, including Page, in filing grievances against Good Shepherd regarding racial discrimination.
At the outset, we point out that fee entitlement for unsuccessful claims does not rest solely upon a commonality of facts or legal theories. Rather, the relevant inquiry is the success achieved in a lawsuit and the reasonableness of time expended in relation to that success. Plaintiffs obtaining excellent results are entitled to recover full compensation, even if they do not prevail on every contention. Id. However, those achieving limited or partial success may recover only that which is reasonable in light of the relief obtained. Id. at 436, 103 S.Ct. at 1941. In a case involving limited success, such as this, joinder alone cannot support full recovery of attorney’s fees.
Additionally, while Albright’s assistance regarding grievance filings may indicate some overlap between the cases, it cannot justify recovery of all fees incurred in pursuit of his claims. Evidence of Albright’s grievance activity may well have added fuel to Page’s section 1983 and racial discrimination claims. However, that was not the sum total of Albright’s case; his claim regarding the arrest represented a substantial portion. The arrest claim was unrelated to those of Page and did not aid her victory. Counsel is therefore not entitled to recover for services on that claim. Id. at 435, 103 S.Ct. at 1940.
The difficulty here is determining which costs may be charged fairly to counsel’s pursuit of the Page case. In the hearing on attorney’s fees, plaintiffs’ counsel stated that the proof, discovery, and research regarding Page’s and Albright’s claims overlapped to the point of being unseverable. However, to serve the overriding goal of compensating counsel in light of the “results obtained,” the fees must be apportioned. Id. at 434-36, 103 S.Ct. at 1939-41. The manner of determining the award and its ultimate amount are committed to the discretion of the district court. See id. at 436-37, 103 S.Ct. at 1941; Gilbert v. City of Little Rock, Ark., 867 F.2d 1063, 1066-67 (8th Cir.) (sustaining fifteen percent reduction for fee award due to the fact that only four of thirteen original plaintiffs obtained relief), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 57, 107 L.Ed.2d 25 (1989). We therefore VACATE the award and REMAND for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
. The record indicates that the court upheld Page's section 1983 claim. However, it is unclear whether she recovered any damages on this claim.
. Although Hensley was decided with regard to a single plaintiff, we see no reason for adopting a different rule in cases involving more than one plaintiff.

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: 2