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:
MILLER v. STOCK et al.
No. 5119.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit,
May 24, 1933.
William H. Speer and William E. Deeker, both .of Jersey City, N. J., for appellant.
Hugh S. Williamson, of New York City, and Edward A. Smarak, of Union City, N. J. (Breed, Abbott & Morgan, of New York City, of counsel), for appellee.
Before BUFFINGTON and DAVIS, Circuit Judges, and DICKINSON, District Judge.
BUFFINGTON, Circuit Judge.
In the court below the receiver of a national bank brought suit against a shareholder and recovered judgment for an assessment made by the Comptroller of the Currency. The shareholder has appealed.
We are admonished by the Supreme Court that it is the duty of federal courts to act promptly in aiding the Comptroller in enforcing the liability of shareholders, that court saying in Kennedy v. Gibson et al., 8 Wall. 498, 505, 19 L. Ed. 476: “A speedy adjustment is necessary to the efficiency and utility of the law; the interests of the creditors require it, and it was the obvious policy and purpose of Congress to give it.” And in Korbly v. Springfield Inst. for Savings, 245 U. S. 333, 38 S. Ct. 88, 90, 62 L. Ed. 326, this language is virtually repeated, the statutory provisions being referred to, as intended “to promote its plain purpose of expeditiously and justly winding up the affairs and paying the debts of such unfortunate institutions.”
In pursuance thereof, we act with promptness in disposing of this case and nn longer delaying the enforcement of the Comptroller’s assessment made September 28,1931.
That the making of the assessment is intrusted to the Comptroller, and that his action cannot be attacked collaterally, has been uniformly held by federal courts, following Kennedy v. Gibson et al., 8 Wall. 498, 505, 19 L. Ed. 476, where it is said: “It is for the comptroller to decide when it is necessary to institute proceedings against the stockholders to enforce their personal liability, and whether the whole or a part, and if only a part, how much, shall be collected. These questions are referred to his judgment and discretion, and his determination is conclusive. The stockholders cannot controvert it. It is not to be questioned in the litigation that may ensue. He may make it at such time as he may deem proper, and upon such data as shall be satisfactory to him.” In Deweese v. Smith (C. C. A.) 106 F. 438, 445, 66 L. R. A. 971, affirmed in 187 U. S. 637, 23. S. Ct. 845, 47 L. Ed. 344, it is said: “But this question is not open to litigation in this case. Under the acts of congress and the decisions of the courts to which reference has been made the comptroller of the currency constitutes a quasi judicial tribunal, to whose exclusive determination congress has intrusted the decision in the first instance of the questions, what proportion of the full liability of the shareholder of an insolvent bank it is necessary to collect to pay its debts, and when this amount shall be paid. His decisions of questions within his jurisdiction are, like the decisions of the land department and of other quasi judicial tribunals, impervious to collateral attack, and open to avoidance by the court only in a direct attack upon them on the grounds of clear error of law, fraud, or mistake.”
In view of these decisions it is clear the alleged defenses of an assertion that the assets of the bank were sufficient to pay its debts, that the bank was solvent, the contention that the comptroller had no sufficient evidence to warrant the appointment of a receiver or to justify the making of an assessment, do not constitute a valid defense in a suit to enforce shareholders’ liability to assessment. The only other defense is that the notice of hearing given by the receiver was to have the court strike down the defense as “frivolous,” and that no notice was given to strike it down as a “sham.” In that regard it is contended that, in view of the state practice, the court below was powerless to adjudge the defense was a “sham” defense in view of lack of notice. It will, of course, be apparent that, if the state rules of pleading prevent a federal court from adjudging as a defense what the federal courts have, as cited above, adjudged was no defense, then and in that event the state practice would not be followed. But there is no occasion for this court to so hold, for the state courts have said in Gee v. Independent Bonding & Cas. Ins. Co., 109 N. J. Law, 563, 162 A. 644, 645: “In the forefront of the counsel’s reasoning for reversal seems to be the idea that, if an answer is attacked on the ground that it is frivolous and it turns out to be a sham answer, the trial court erred in striking out the answer on the ground that it was sham, because it had been attacked, not as sham, but as frivolous. We cannot agree with this captious theory, for, when such a pleading is attacked, all of its frailties are under judicial scrutiny, and, if it is lacking in the essentials and offers no defense, it is properly stricken out. Coxe v. Higbee, 11 N. J. Law, 395.”
We are, therefore, of opinion the court below was right in striking out defendant’s answer and entering judgment for the receiver. Its judgment we now affirm.

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