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:
J. R. HANIFY CO. v. WESTBERG.
(Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
December 13, 1926.)
No. 4891.
1. Master and servant <§=>278(3) — Recovery by longshoreman for injury by breaking of defective sling held sustained by evidence.
A judgment for injury to a longshoreman by the falling on him of a sling load of lumber being loaded into a vessel on the ground that the rope of which the sling furnished by his employer was made was defective and worn, held sustained by the evidence.
2. Master and servant <§=>103(1) — Duties of employer to furnish reasonably safe appliances and properly inspect same are absolute.
The duties of an employer to furnish his workmen with reasonably safe appliances and to make proper inspection of them from time to time are imposed on him by law, and are absolute and nondelegable.
3. Master and servant <§=>185(6) — That defective appliance was selected by fellow servant from quantity furnished does not relieve employer from liability for injury to workman.
The fact that a quantity of appliances are furnished by an employer, and that a defective one, by-which a workman is injured, was selected by a fellow servant, will not relieve the employer from liability.
4. Evidence <§=>194 — Identity of articles offered in evidence presents preliminary question for trial judge.
It is for the trial judge to determine whether or not an article offered has been sufficiently identified to warrant its admission in evidence, and its submission to the jury to pass finally on the question of identity.
In Error to the District Court of the United States for the District of Oregon; Robert S. Bean, Judge.
Action at law by Leonard Westberg against the J. R. Hanify Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error.
Affirmed.
Erskine Wood and Gunther E. Krause, both of Portland, Or., for plaintiff in error.
Lord & Moulton, of Portland, Or.,- for defendant in error.
Before RUDKIN, Circuit Judge, and DIETRICH and KERRIGAN, District Judges.
KERRIGAN, District Judge.
Leonard Westberg, a longshoreman, brought an action against J. R. Hanify Company, a corporation, to recover damages for injuries sustained by him while employed by said corporation in stowing lumber, which was being loaded on the steam schooner Ryder Hanify, which lay at a dock at Portland, Or. The ease was tried before a jury, which found a verdict for the plaintiff, upon which judgment for $4,000 and costs was entered against defendant, who, by writ of error, brings the case to this court.
The cause of action is based on the alleged negligence of the plaintiff in error in furnishing for use in the work of loading its schooner a sling of insufficient strength for the task, with the result that, while a load of lumber was being hoisted, the sling which held it together broke, and defendant in error was struck by pieces of lumber which fell with considerable force upon him.
There are several theories upon which the accident might be accounted for. The load may have been excessive, as a consequence of the order of the master of the vessel in charge of the work to include in one load a quantity of lumber which, without his intervention, would have furnished material for two; or the sling may have been defective; or, as contended by defendant in error, the failure of the winehman to shout a warning to the men engaged in the work of loading may have contributed to the injury
The defendant contends that the evidence establishes only an accident resulting from one or more of these three conditions, for one or more of which it would not be responsible, and that therefore the verdict for the plaintiff cannot be sustained.
It must be admitted that the defendant would not be liable if the accident were due to an excessive load, carried or taken through the carelessness or bad judgment of the mate, who clearly was a fellow servant of the plaintiff. The Westport (C. C. A.) 136 F. 391; Olson v. Oregon Coal & Nav. Co. (C. C. A.) 104 F. 574; Carstensen v. Hammond Lumber Co. (C. C. A.) 11 F.(2d) 142; The Frank D. Stout (C. C. A.) 276 F. 382. Eor a like reason there would be no liability if the accident had been caused by the failure of the winehman to shout a warning. Western Fuel Co. v. Garcia (C. C. A.) 260 F. 839. But we think there was ample evidence to support a verdict that the accident resulted from the use of a defective sling, and that, on appropriate instructions, which eliminated negligence of the mate or watchman as a ground of recovery, such defaults being those of fellow servants, and, moreover, not charged in the complaint as causing or contributing to the injury, the jury properly so found.
The cable of which the sling was made was exhibited to several witnesses, all well qualified to give an opinion as to its condition, and by each it was characterized as inferior in quality. One witness, a sailor and longshoreman of 20 years’ experience, stated that, although slings are usually made of discarded cargo falls, from which the worn portions are cut out, “this end was the bummest end of the winch fall, that the man put a splice in and used for lumber sling.” Under the evidence introduced by the plaintiff there can be no doubt that the sling was worn to such an extent as to be unequal to the burden which, in the ordinary course of the work, might' be imposed upon it, and therefore a possible source of danger, and that proper inspection would have disclosed the fact.
It is the duty of an employer to furnish his workmen with reasonably safe appliances, and to make properl inspection of them from time to time thereafter. These duties are imposed upon him by law, and axe absolute and nondelegable. Kreigh v. Westinghouse, 214 U. S. 249, 29 S. Ct. 619, 53 L. Ed. 984. Where the only appliances suitable for the work are defective — and there is some evidence that the sling which parted was the only one long enough for use in handling the particular load here involved-liability for resulting injury is uneseapable. Even where a quantity of appliances are furnished, all presumably suitable for the work, but some of them defective, the fact that a selection must be made by a fellow servant of an injured workman is unimportant, and the use of one of them which is defective will not shift the responsibility. Rosseau v. Deschenes, 203 Mass. 261, 89 N. E. 391; Thomas v. Ann Arbor Ry. Co., 114 Mich. 59, 72 N. W. 40. To hold otherwise would be virtually to abrogate the rule that the duty to use due care to furnish safe appliances is nondelegable.
It is urged that the sling, when offered in evidence, was not sufficiently identified as the one which broke to warrant its admission, and that this preliminary question was left to the jury, instead of being determined, as it should have been, by the court. The wire offered in evidence was picked up immediately after the accident from under or near the end of the load whieh fell, and was the only broken piece of sling anywhere near. Its possession was accounted for from that moment up to the time it was offered in evidence at the trial. Preliminary questions of fact, such as the identity of articles offered in evidence, are for the trial court to decide. 22 C. J. 766; State v. Porter, 32 Or. 135, 49 P. 964. It is for the trial judge to determine whether or not facts have been established whieh warrant the submission of such articles to the consideration of the jury, and’ cases may easily be imagined in whieh it would be prejudicial error for him not to do so; but in the ease at bar no such error was committed. ; The court, after hearing the testimony, ruled that the sling was admissible, and stated its reasons for holding that the article had been sufficiently identified, adding that the jury were privileged to reject the evidence, if in its opinion the identity of the sling was not established, thus leaving the ultimate determination to the jury. This was in conformity to a practice whieh is commendable because of its extreme fairness, and, if erroneous, was favorable to the defendant rather than otherwise.
It seems unnecessary to add that this case was tried, argued, and briefed on the theory that defendant in error was proceeding in maritime tort, and not under the Merchant Marine Act. No reference was made to the aet in this court, and no indication was given of an intention to accept its benefits until more than three weeks after submission of the cause, when International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 47 S. Ct. 19, 71 L. Ed.-, was decided. Since the judgment on either theory must be affirmed, it has been thought expedient to decide the ease on the same theory as that on which it was tried, and on which the writ of error was defended.
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: 1