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 "natural persons". 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:
BOBANGO v. ERIE R. CO.
No. 5860.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Gircuit.
March 18, 1932.
S. T. Gaines, of Cleveland, Ohio (Borden & Gaines, of Cleveland, Ohio, on the brief), for appellant.
E. A. Foote, of Cleveland, Ohio (McGowan, Foote, Bushnell & Burgess, of Cleveland, Ohio, on the brief), for appellee.
Before MOORMAN and HICKEN-LOOPER, Circuit Judges, and TUTTLE, District Judge.
MOORMAN, Circuit Judge.
This suit was brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (45 OSCA §§ 51-59) to recover damages for personal injuries. At the close of the evidence on the trial below, the District Court, upon motion, directed a verdict for the defendant. Plaintiff appeals.
On the day of the injury, plaintiff was a member of a surveying crew employed by defendant. Part of the equipment of the crew was a level rod of wood six or seven feet long. On one end of it was fastened a metal target about five or six inches in diameter and one-eighth of an inch thick. The plaintiff testified that this rod was left by a member of the crew upon the railroad track with the target resting on one of the rails, and that ■ho discovered its location when a train was approaching about two or three rail lengths away, and in attempting to remove it was struck by the locomotive and injured.
It is not claimed that the train crew was at fault. The contention is that the employee who left the rod on tho track was negligent, and that whether his negligence was the proximate- cause of the injury was a question for the jury. The lower court took the view that the injury was caused solely by the plaintiff’s own act. We agree with that conclusion, and we find nothing contra in Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. McBride, 36 F.(2d) 841 (6 C. C. A.). While the rule of proximate cause does not require an anticipation of the precise injuries received, it is generally held that before there can be a finding of such cause it must be made to appear that the injury was a natural and direct consequence of the negligent act or, as sometimes stated, a consequence that ought to have been foreseen in the light of all the attending circumstances. Milwaukee, etc., Railway Co. v. Kellogg, 94 U. S. 469, 24 L. Ed. 256; Toledo, etc., R. Co. v. Kountz (C. C. A.) 168 F. 832, 838. This court and others have frequently declared/ that certain acts, negligent in their character, were not the proximate .cause of injuries sued for. Gwyn v. Cincinnati, N. O. & T. P. R. Co., 155 F. 88 (6 C. C. A.); Winters v. Baltimore & O. R. Co., 177 F. 44 (6 C. C. A.); Orton v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 7 F.(2d) 36 (6 C. C. A.). The ease at bar is closely analogous to the last-mentioned ease, where the plaintiff drove his automobile into a train standing on a highway crossing. The court held that the negligent act of the defendant in permitting the cars to stand on the crossing was not the proximate cause of the injury, as it could not reasonably be expected that one with ample time to stop would drive into a train.
The circumstances in which plaintiff was injured were somewhat unusual, and, although it ought to have been foreseen that if the rod were left on the track it-would be struck by a train, we are convinced that it could not reasonably have been expected that plaintiff, in the situation in which he found himself, would undertake to remove it. The plaintiff saw the train approaching and knew how rapidly it was moving. He was not in a position of danger,* and was not called upon to make a choice of a way of escape. In our view his own act was an intervening and the sole cause of his injury. Gt. Northern Ry. v. Wiles, 240 U. S. 444, 36 S. Ct. 406, 60 L. Ed. 732; Frese v. C., B. & Q. R. R., 263 U. S. 1, 44 S. Ct. 1, 68 L. Ed. 131. We cannot agree that his intervention was justified under the danger invites rescue doctrine. Erie R. R. Co. v. Caldwell, 264 F. 947 (6 C. C. A.), does not so indicate. In that case Caldwell, the employee, was a member of a train crew engaged in switching a train of cars. The train separated, and the detached part started slowly down the track. Caldwell boarded it, as it was his duty to do, to set the brakes and prevent it from colliding with other cars on the track. The act of Caldwell in boarding the ears was plainly not imminently dangerous. In the present ease there was no reason for plaintiff to believe that the train would be derailed or that if it struck the rod he would be injured. Indeed, it was shown by the defendant’s evidence that the rod was not struck by the train at -all, but was found after the injury where it had been left — not on, but near, the track. Even, however, if it was on the traek and might have been struck,, the danger of undertaking to remove it was too apparent to justify the attempt.
The judgment is affirmed.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1