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:
O’CARROLL v. CIVIL AERONAUTICS BOARD.
No. 8857.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia.
Argued Oct. 2, 1944.
Decided Oct. 9, 1944.
Mr. Coates Lear, of Washington, D. C., for petitioner.
Mr. Merrill Armour, of the Bar of the State of California, of Washington, D. C., pro hac.vice, for respondent. Mr. Albert F. Grisard, of Washington, D. C., also entered an appearance for respondent.
Before MILLER, EDGERTON and ARNOLD, Associate Justices.
PER CURIAM.
This is a petition to review an ofder of the Civil Aeronautics Board under Section 646, 49 U.S.C. The order appealed from suspended petitioner’s commercial pilot’s certificate on the ground that he had been negligent in taking off from a commercial air field. The appeal was primarily based on two grounds : (1) That there is no substantial evidence to support the findings of the Board; and (2) that petitioner was deprived of a fair trial because the trial examiner who had made the preliminary findings gave testimony at the Board’s hearing.
As to the first point we have examined the record and find ample evidence to support the Board’s finding of negligence. In support of the second point petitioner argues that a trial examiner who has been delegated to make preliminary findings of fact is in the position of a judge, and for that reason cannot testify or participate in a proceeding to review its findings without depriving the hearing of the essential quality of due process even though the statute contains no express prohibition of such procedure. We need not decide this question because the examiner’s participation in the hearing was limited to a few remarks concerning his interpretation of one of the Board’s rules. He was cautioned by the Board that this was improper and no possible prejudice could have arisen because of this minor incident at the hearing.
The trial examiner also represented the Board in the argument before this court. While this was done with the consent of the petitioner the appearance of the trial examiner as an advocate was inconsistent with his former quasi judicial function. We do not think this should affect our decision in this case. We suggest, however, that in our opinion the Board was guilty of an impropriety in assigning an attorney to argue a case in which he had previously served as a trial examiner.
There is no merit in the other contentions of the petitioner.
The order of the Board will be
Affirmed.
49 U.S.C.A. § 646.

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: 0