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:
STANDARD FINANCIAL CORPORATION, a New York corporation, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. AUTOMATIC FOODS CORPORATION, an Illinois corporation, Robo-Matic Vending, Inc., an Illinois corporation, Jack E. Trost and Harold J. Carlsen, Defendants, and Percy J. Preston and Harry E. Sloan, Defendants-Appellants.
No. 15938.
United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.
Aug. 9, 1967.
Rehearing Denied Sept. 15, 1967.
Michael Levin, Michael M. Kachigian, Donald A. Mitchell, Chicago, Ill., for appellants.
Edward Rothbart, Thomas E. Moran, Joseph Stein, Chicago, Ill., for appellee.
Before SCHNACKENBERG, ENOCH and SWYGERT, Circuit Judges.
SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge.
Percy J. Preston and Harry E. Sloan, defendants, appeal from a judgment of the district court against them for |154,179.63 with interest and costs of suit, in favor of Standard Financial Corporation, a New York corporation, plaintiff. Their attorneys in their brief state that the court made a finding that malice was the gist of the action.
Named as additional defendants were Automatic Foods Corporation and Robo-Matic Vending, Inc., Illinois corporations, as well as Jack E. Trost and Harold J. Carlsen.
In this action plaintiff seeks damages which it charges were caused by Sloan and Preston, directors and shareholders of Robo-Matic, which had guaranteed payment of obligations to be paid to plaintiff. It relies on said defendants’ distribution to themselves of all of the assets of Robo-Matic.
There is substantial evidence in the record supporting findings of fact by the district court to the effect that (1) Automatic Foods on July 24, 1958 entered into an agreement with plaintiff guaranteeing prompt payment of chattel mortgages and lease obligations sold to it by Automatic, (2) defendants Trost, Sloan and Preston guaranteed 10% of said payment by Automatic to plaintiff, and (3) Robo-Matic guaranteed the payment by Automatic of all monies to be paid by Automatic to plaintiff. Such evidence also supports the court’s findings that plaintiff relied upon said guaranties in purchasing chattel mortgages and lease obligations from Automatic and that Sloan and Preston each owned 50% of Robo-Matic’s stock, as well as 30% of the stock of Automatic and each was a director of both corporations when the guaranty of Robo-Matic was given and plaintiff purchased from Automatic chattel mortgages and lease obligations.
On August 19, 1958, Robo-Matic filed with the secretary of state of Illinois a statement of intent to dissolve by voluntary consent of stockholders pursuant to Illinois law and it was certified to the attorney-general for involuntary dissolution on November 16, 1959 for failure to file an annual report and pay franchise taxes. Robo-Matic did not mail to plaintiff a statement of intent to dissolve as required by law.
Between October 1958 and July 1959, Robo-Matic distributed in cash to defendant Preston $112,346.20 and to defendant Sloan $132,118.20. In September, 1959 it distributed to Preston an additional $20,000 in cash. Sloan and Preston were directors and shareholders of Robo-Matic at the time of these distributions. Robo-Matic is insolvent and has no assets.
However, in this court, counsel for Preston and Sloan argue that plaintiff did not purchase commercial paper from Automatic until February 26, 1959, and that Robo-Matic’s liability, if any, did not arise until then, and that the liability of Sloan and Preston did not arise until the default of Automatic on July 1, 1959. They pursue their theory further by saying that consequently their acts in October 1958 in withdrawing the principal assets of Robo-Matic “before the existence of a creditor-debtor relation” between plaintiff and any defendants did not give rise to any liability on their part and certainly were not such acts as to charge them with malice. We. reject this argument.
Under Illinois law a more realistic. view is taken of the right of a creditor. In Dunnigan v. Stevens, 122 Ill. 396, at 403-404, 13 N.E. 651, at 653-654 (1887), the court remarked:
“It is again said, the maker might pay the notes at maturity, and so the indorser not have them to pay. But this would not be inconsistent with the indorser’s liability for the payment of the notes.
“The same might be said in respect of a surety or a guarantor, that the principal debtor might pay the debt on its coming due; yet that would not militate against .the previous obligation of the surety or guarantor to pay the debt. * * *”
Thus in the case at bar the record shows that plaintiff relied on the guarantor Robo-Matic. On the facts of this case we fail to see how voluntary dissolution of Robo-Matic by Sloan and Preston, accompanied by a distribution of its assets to them as shareholders, can be permitted to defeat the rights of plaintiff. We cannot believe that Illinois law tolerates such a blatant disregard by Sloan and Preston of their and Robo-Matic’s guaranties. We agree with the conclusion of the district court that they acted fraudulently and with malice and that Sloan and Preston are liable to plaintiff for its loss and damage arising therefrom.
We affirm the judgment of the district court;
■Judgment affirmed.

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