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:
NASHVILLE BRIDGE COMPANY, Appellee, v. A. B. BURTON COMPANY, Inc., Intervenor, Appellant.
No. 8422.
United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.
Argued Oct. 25, 1961.
Decided Feb. 1, 1962.
Clyde C. Randolph, Jr., Winston-Salem, N. C. (James R. Caskie, S. Bolling Hobbs, and Caskie, Frost, Davidson & Watts, Lynchburg, Va., on brief), for intervenor appellant.
David M. Clark and Stephen Millilcin, Greensboro, N. C. (Smith, Moore, Smith, Schell & Hunter, Greensboro, N. C., on brief), for appellee.
Before SOBELOFF, Chief Judge, and BOREMAN and BRYAN, Circuit Judges.
ALBERT V. BRYAN, Circuit Judge.
Intervention as a party defendant in this action, which involves a material-man’s claim on a construction contract bond of A. B. Burton Company, Inc. and named defendants, was sought by but denied to Burton. The Company appeals on the ground that its motion pleaded facts entitling it to enter the case as of right. Rule 24, F.R.Civ.P., 28 U.S.C.A. Failing this, refusal to allow permissive intervention is assailed as an abuse of the District Court’s discretion.
But the whole issue, we think, will be mooted by the motion — filed after the appeal — of Burton’s surety, an original defendant, to implead Burton as a third-party defendant. The motion is obviously well made for it will allow the determination in a single action of all the claims “arising out of the transaction or occurrence” between the plaintiff and the surety. Rule 14, F.R.C.P. The first result will be this appeal’s dismissal.
This conclusion is readily developed, since the problem here is solely one of pleading, from a narrative of the facts distilled from the allegations of the complaint, the answers and counterclaim, and the motion of intervention. Nashville Bridge Company, a Delaware corporation, brought the action in the District Court upon diversity jurisdiction against two South Carolina corporations, the defendants F. A. Triplett, Inc. and James T. Triplett, Inc. and the defendant Standard Accident Insurance Company, of Michigan charter. The Tripletts, together with appellant Burton, had entered into a contract with the North Carolina State Highway Commission for the construction of certain public roadways including a bridge of considerable dimensions. Standard signed, as surety, the required contract bond which the Tripletts and Burton had executed as principals. The bond protected those who furnished labor or materials to the principals for use in the project. Nashville sued as a subcontractor and materialman of the Tripletts claiming $43,000 of the Tripletts and Standard. It did not sue Burton.
In the performance of the State contract the Tripletts, who had in the allocation of the work among the principals undertaken the bridge erection, ordered from plaintiff Nashville a large amount of structural steel. Burton was not mentioned in the purchase agreement. Except for $43,000, for which Nashville sued, the entire price of the steel was paid by the Tripletts. This balance they refused to pay for the reason that the steel had not been delivered, they said, in accordance with the agreed delivery schedule and the completion of the bridge was thereby delayed, with resultant damages to the Tripletts of $15,143.00 and to Burton .of $36,821.93. Burton had been assigned those segments of the State contract requiring the use of the bridge, and its damages assertedly were occasioned by the unavailability of the bridge due to Nashville’s default.
To recover their damages the Tripletts presented a “Second Defense and Counterclaim” in the joint answer of themselves and Standard to Nashville’s complaint. In it the defendants asked that Burton also be made a party defendant to the action, so that Burton could prosecute its claim against Nashville, the Tripletts and Burton could square their accounts in accordance with the outcome of the case, and Standard could obtain indemnity, if necessary, from Burton. Burton meanwhile had moved to intervene and file a similar answer, with a like “Second Defense and Counterclaim” to recover its damages of Nashville.
Burton’s motion was granted ex parte, but later upon the motion of the plaintiff it was stricken without prejudice to Burton to sue Nashville in a separate action. Ruling on the defendants’ joint responsive pleadings, the Court directed the Tripletts and Standard to replead, due to confusion in their answer and counterclaim. It reserved to Standard the right to “amend its answer to assert any claim it might have against A. B. Burton Co. Inc.”. Apparently this saving clause suggested a third-party proceeding by Standard against Burton. Neither the Tripletts nor Standard is appealing. Burton is here asking review and reversal of the order overruling its motion to intervene.
The parties have argued and briefed the case on the principles of intervention. However, as the appellant Burton, a Virginia corporation subject to process in North Carolina, is now impleaded as a third-party defendant by Standard and, upon entry of the order confirming the impleader, will be a party in the action, it will be endowed with every right of defense, claim, counterclaim and cross-claim which it asked to assert in its motion for intervention. These privileges are amply bestowed upon a third-party defendant by Rule 14, F.R.C.P., reading in pertinent portion as follows:
“(a) * * * The third-party defendant may assert against the plaintiff any defenses which the third-party plaintiff has to the plaintiff’s claim. The third-party defendant may also assert any claim against the plaintiff arising out of the transaction or occurrence that is the subject matter of the plaintiff’s claim against the third-party plaintiff. The plaintiff may assert any claim against the third-party defendant arising out of the transaction or occurrence that is the subject matter of the plaintiff’s claim against the third-party plaintiff, and the third-party defendant thereupon shall assert his defense as provided in Rule 12 and his counterclaims and cross-claims as provided in Rule 13. * * *»
See American Export Lines Inc. v. Revel, 262 F.2d 122, 124 (4 Cir. 1958).
Manifestly, the concern of the appellant is dispelled and no. reason for the appeal remains. It will be dismissed, each party bearing its own costs.
Appeal dismissed.

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