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:
RAILWAY LABOR EXECUTIVES’ ASSOCIATION, Appellant, v. CHICAGO AND NORTHWESTERN TRANSPORTATION COMPANY and Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad, Appellees. State of South Dakota, Amicus Curiae/Appellee.
No. 87-5071.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Nov. 29, 1989.
Before LAY, Chief Judge, HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and MAGILL, Circuit Judge.
ORDER
On June 26, 1989, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari in the above-entitled case. It then vacated the judgment of this court, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 3207, 106 L.Ed.2d 558, and remanded the case to us for further consideration in the light of Pittsburgh & Lake Erie R.R. v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 491 U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2584, 105 L.Ed.2d 415 (1989) (P & LE).
This court requested the parties to file letter briefs with respect to the application of P & LE to the instant case. After a careful review of the decision of the United States Supreme Court and the letter briefs, we revise our original opinion.
I.
There is one important difference between the facts in P & LE and those in this case. In P & LE, the carrier sold all of its assets to a newly formed subsidiary. Here, the Chicago and Northwestern (C & NW) sold only a portion of its assets (826 miles of rail line and 126 miles of trackage in South Dakota) to a newly formed railway company. Thus, we must decide whether the Supreme Court’s decision that a railway company need not bargain with the unions with respect to a sale of all of its assets to another corporation applies to a case in which a railway company sells only a portion of its assets.
We believe that C & NW was not required to bargain over the sale in this case prior to the sale’s completion. The sale was approved by the I.C.C., the sale was for an unprofitable, discrete section of the railway that might have been abandoned but for the sale, and after the sale C & NW would have no relationship with the purchaser. Thus, we hold that C & NW was not obligated to serve a section 156 notice on the union in connection with the proposed sale nor was it obligated to maintain the status quo and postpone the sale beyond the time the sale was approved by the Commission and was scheduled to be consummated.
This holding does not, however, end the matter. We also believe that P & LE made it clear that a railroad selling all or a part of its assets is required to bargain about the effects that the sale will or might have on its employees:
The disputed issue is whether P & LE was required to bargain about the effects that the sale would or might have upon its employees. P & LE, in our view, was not entirely free to disregard the unions’ demand that it bargain about such effects.
P & LE, 491 U.S. at -, 109 S.Ct. at 2597, 105 L.Ed.2d at 435 (emphasis added). Moreover, C & NW can bargain about the effects of the sale even after the sale is consummated.
In P & LE, the Supreme Court held that the obligation to bargain over effects existed “only until the date for closing the sale arrived,” which, of course, would not occur in this case until the ex parte 392 exemption became effective and the transfer occurred. We are convinced that the Supreme Court placed a time limitation on the obligation to bargain because after that date, the selling railroad would have no assets and no employees. Here, the selling railroad will retain the major portion of its assets and will continue to employ persons who are members of the labor organizations that are parties to this case. Thus, C & NW can bargain about the effects of the sale without delaying or upsetting the sale.
II.
We reject the suggestion of the C & NW and of the dissent that the dispute between the parties is a minor dispute and thus subject to arbitration. The facts here are quite close to those in P & LE, and the Supreme Court there held that the dispute was a major one and that the railroad company was obligated to bargain with the union as to the effects of the sale. The union is not seeking an interpretation of the express or implied terms of the collective bargaining agreement nor is it seeking a ruling that a past practice should be enforced. Rather, it is seeking to negotiate over the effects of a sale on those C & NW employees who are affected by it. No clear reason has been advanced by the C & NW as to why we should categorize this dispute differently.
We have no quarrel with the test advanced by the dissent to determine whether a dispute is a major or a minor one. Post at 1029. That test was approved by the United States Supreme Court in Consolidated Rail Corp. v. Railway Labor Executives Ass’n, — U.S. -, -, 109 S.Ct. 2477, 2482, 105 L.Ed.2d 250, 264 (1989), and this court in Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees v. Burlington Northern R.R., 802 F.2d 1016, 1022 (8th Cir.1986). Here, C & NW claims that the dispute over what benefits, if any, the railroad employees should receive only relates to the execution of the agreement and should be arbitrated. We disagree. This fact can be illustrated by attempting to frame the issue that would be decided by an arbitration board established under the Railway Labor Act.
C & NW suggested before the district court for the Northern District of Illinois in a case they argue is controlling, that the issue in a case such as this should be whether C & NW violated its agreements with the unions. Chicago & Northwestern Railway v. Railway Labor Executives Ass’n, No. 88 C 444, slip op. (N.D.Ill. Oct. 6, 1989). We disagree. Both parties concede that their agreements neither permit nor prohibit the C & NW from selling a portion of its business.
Nor should or would the issue be as formulated by the district court in that case: “what treatment, in terms of pay (severance or otherwise), seniority rights, benefit rights, transfer rights, etc., the employees of the C & NW (who are affected by the line sale) are entitled to in terms of contractual provisions and attendant past practices.” Id. at 6. The question thus phrased would give the arbitrator a roving commission to invent terms which were never agreed to by the parties.
III.
The Supreme Court in P & LE has determined that disputes of this nature are major ones. In light of P & LE, we conclude that the C & NW is obligated to bargain with the unions with respect to the effects of the sale only. Bargaining should commence promptly and proceed in accordance with the provisions of the Railway Labor Act.
Under our decision the sale will stand, and the right of the C & NW to exercise its right to sell all or a part of its holdings will be preserved. Thus, the unions cannot prevent the sale. As in P & LE, however, the railroad company will be required to bargain over the effects of the sale on its employees, thus accomplishing the intent of Congress to balance the rights of employers and workers.
We vacate our opinion of May 31, 1988 and remand to the district court with directions that it enter an order requiring the C & NW to bargain on request of the Railway Labor Executives Association with respect to the effects of the sale on the employees of C & NW.

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