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:
William Henry HIET, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
No. 19747.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued Sept. 21, 1966.
Decided Jan. 12, 1967.
Petition for Rehearing En Banc Denied March 9, 1967.
Mr. Richard J. Flynn, Washington, D. C. (appointed by this court), with whom Mr. David J. Boyd was on the brief, for appellant.
Mr. James A. Strazzella, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. David G. Bress, U. S. Atty., and Frank Q. Nebeker, Asst. U. S. Atty., were on the brief, for appellee.
Before Bazelon, Chief Judge, and Danaher, Circuit Judge, and Bastían, Senior Circuit Judge.
DANAHER, Circuit Judge.
This appellant was convicted of unlawful possession on February 17, 1965 of some 16 packages which had been stolen from the United States mails in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1708. He has here contended that the District Court erred in denying his motion to suppress certain mail bags and that he otherwise had not received a fair trial.
The Government offered evidence to show that about 12:50 A.M. on February 17, 1965, two Metropolitan police officers had stopped their police car at Fourth and F Streets, N. E. This appellant then owned and was operating an automobile which he drove through the stop light at approximately 30 miles per hour. Officer Ashbum turned on the police car’s red light and with siren sounding, commenced pursuit of Hiet’s car. Thereupon, Hiet halted his car briefly but renewed his flight, only to strike two parked cars after turning from Second Street into G Street. The Hiet ear continued into an alley where it presently collided with a fence. Hiet jumped from the car and continued his flight on foot. The opening of the door on the abandoned vehicle had caused the car’s dome light to come on. As Officer Emmart approached he readily saw two bags labeled “U. S. Mail.” In the right front seat of the car was one Raymond Cloud whom the officer placed under arrest.
Meanwhile, Officer Ashbum had apprehended Hiet. With Cloud in the back seat of the police cruiser, Officer Emmart drove around the block and joined Officer Ashburn who called for a police wagon. Hiet was placed inside as the two officers returned to Hiet’s car. Both doors were still open, the inside dome light was still lighted, and the officers saw the two mail bags, one on top of the other, just behind the driver’s seat. The bags were taken to a police precinct and were examined by Inspector Weaver of the Post Office Department who determined that the packages in the mail bags had been mailed and had been received by the postal authorities.
Although no pretrial motion for the suppression of the mailed items had been made, defense counsel at trial asked to reserve the right to object to the introduction of the evidence. In due course a motion to suppress was offered on the ground that the mail bags had been seized without the officers’ having procured a search warrant. The trial judge ruled that the seizure was valid.
When the officers approached the car they saw the mail bags in plain view, and the case accordingly, is totally unlike the circumstances shown in Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 84 S.Ct. 881, 11 L.Ed.2d 777 (1964); cf. Price v. United States, 121 U.S.App.D.C. 62, 348 F.2d 68, cert. denied, 382 U.S. 888, 86 S.Ct. 170, 15 L.Ed.2d 125 (1965). Since there was no search, Harris v. United States, 125 U.S.App.D.C. -, 370 F.2d 477 (en banc, 1966), a search warrant was unnecessary. The only question is whether or not the mail bags could be seized. Although it is possible that the mail bags could have been in appellant’s possession lawfully, the cir-cumstanees outlined above gave the officers probable cause to believe that a crime involving the mail bags had been, and was being, committed. Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949). The trial judge so found. The officers could seize the mail bags as a fruit of the crime.
The appellant did not take the stand and no explanation was offered as to his possession of the mail bags. Cf. Yee Hem v. United States, 268 U.S. 178, 185, 45 S.Ct. 470, 69 L.Ed. 904 (1925); Dunlop v. United States, 165 U.S. 486, 502, 503, 17 S.Ct. 375, 41 L.Ed. 799 (1897).
The appellant has not substantiated his claim that the trial court abused its discretion by not granting a continuance. The judgment of the District Court is
Affirmed.
. The intoxicated Cloud informed police that Hiet had picked him up and was taking him home; he had no knowledge concerning the mail bags. What disposition was ultimately made of Cloud’s case does not appear on this record. The Government unsuccessfully attempted to locate him,, but Cloud did not appear at Hiet’s trial.

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