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:
In the Matter of Alfred CORMAN, Bankrupt-Appellant, Manufacturers Trust Company, Appellee.
No. 109, Docket 27715.
United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.
Argued Nov. 8, 1962.
Decided Nov. 23, 1962.
Samuel B. Ohlbaum, New York City, for bankrupt-appellant.
Albert X. Bader, Jr., New York City (Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett, New York City, on the brief), for appellee.
Before MEDINA, SMITH and KAUFMAN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
In May of 1953, the bankrupt and one Samuel Scheck were adjudged jointly liable to appellee as co-endorsers and co-guarantors of notes executed by two corporations of which they were officers. With accrued interest the total debt on the date of bankrupty was $413,620.52. Appellee proved against the bankrupt for $224,348.30, giving credit for $183,-272.22 paid by the corporations and $6,000 paid by the bankrupt. The bankrupt moved to expunge the entire claim on the ground that a compromise agreement executed on October 14, 1953 and payments thereunder in the amount of $128,191.32 entirely discharged his obligations as co-endorser and judgment debtor. We hold that the obligations were not entirely discharged. But in affirming the District Court’s judgment affirming the Referee’s order denying this motion, we do not decide the question whether deduction should be made for the payments under the October 14, 1953 agreement.
Section 234 of the New York Debtor and Creditor Law, McKinney’s Consol.Laws, c. 12, provides that an obligee’s release or discharge of one or more joint obligors shall not discharge other joint obligors against whom said' obligee expressly reserves his rights in writing. The parties to the compromise agreement were appellee, on the one hand, and Samuel Scheck and his brother Sidney Scheck and several others, on the other. It was expressly stated that the purpose of the agreement, to which the bankrupt was not a party, was “to compromise' the liability of Samuel Scheck,”' and that all rights against the bankrupt were “expressly reserve [d]". It was further provided that the judgments would be “marked satisfied” or assigned, if requested, and pursuant thereto, upon, rendering payment, Sidney Scheck took an assignment of the judgment. While the agreement did specify that $128,-191.32 would be accepted as “payment, in full,” on the face of the agreement as a whole and the express reservation therein provided, it is perfectly clear that this related only to the discharge of Samuel Scheck and that Section 234 is applicable. In re Horowitz’s Estate, 1946, Sur., 64 N.Y.S.2d 4, modified on other grounds, 2nd Dept., 1947, 272 App. Div. 942, 72 N.Y.S.2d 67, reversed on other grounds, 1948, 297 N.Y. 252, 78 N.E.2d 598; Brill v. Brandt, 1941, 176 Misc. 580, 26 N.Y.S.2d 477, affirmed, 1st Dept., 1941, 263 App.Div. 811, 31 N.Y.S. 2d 674, affirmed, 1942, 289 N.Y. 581, 43 N.E.2d 718.
Appellee acknowledges that it is only entitled to payment to the extent of its actual loss, $96,156.98, but its proof was filed and allowed in the amount of $224,348.30. Whether Section 233 of the Debtor and Creditor Law requires that a deduction be made for the payments by the third party, Sidney Seheck, is an issue not raised by the parties or decided by us, and the judgment below is affirmed only to the extent of allowing proof of $96,156.98, with proof of the additional amount of $128,191.32 being left open for such ruling as the District Court may be requested to make.
Judgment modified as directed.

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