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:
Ann Marie ROCKER, Appellant, v. Edward F. HUNTINGTON, Individually and as District Superintendent of Schools of the Sole Supervisory School District of Washington, Warren, Hamilton and Essex Counties, State of New York, et al., Appellees.
No. 448, Docket 76-7334.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Argued Jan. 28, 1977.
Decided Feb. 24, 1977.
Rocco A. Solimando, Albany, N. Y. (Bernard P. Ashe and Gerard John DeWolf, Albany, N. Y., of counsel), for appellant.
H. Wayne Judge, Glens Falls, N. Y. (Caf-fry, Pontiff, Stewart, Rhodes & Judge and Mark A. Lebowitz, Glens Falls, N. Y., of counsel), for appellees.
Before FEINBERG, OAKES and GUR-FEIN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Plaintiff, Ann Marie Rocker, was a probationary second-grade teacher at the Granville Central School District from the period from September 1970 through June 1973. She was denied tenure and dismissed by the Board of Education. She sued Edward F. Huntington, individually and as Superintendent of Schools, as well as other school district officials and members of the Board of Education, charging a violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Jurisdiction is based on 28 U.S.C. § 1343(3) and (4).
Appellant alleged that her dismissal and the denial of tenure were in retaliation for her exercise of her First Amendment right of freedom of speech and in violation of her Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law. The case was tried by Chief Judge James T. Foley in the Northern District of New York, without a jury. The judge made extensive findings of fact and conclusions of law and granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint and entered judgment for the defendants.
Under Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure we may not set aside the findings of fact unless they are “clearly erroneous.” The essence of her complaint was that certain public expressions made by the plaintiff, and some falsely attributed to her, at public meetings of the Board of Education were the cause of her termination as a teacher. She also complained that she was denied a hearing with full rights of due process before the decision was made. She sought reinstatement with back pay and the expunging of all records related to her termination.
Judge Foley found, after trial, that since the plaintiff had only probationary status, the Board was not required to give her a full hearing on the termination of her services. That is correct. Board of Education v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972).
With respect to her First Amendment claim, the District Court found that the plaintiff’s performance in the classroom was not up to the standards demanded by the School District. The court also found that there was no unconstitutional motivation on the part of the Board. The evidence showed examples of free speaking by teachers at Board meetings which never resulted in retaliation; and, indeed, it was found to be the policy of the school administration to encourage teachers to attend meetings of the Board, at which some teachers were openly and vocally critical of the Board.
The careful attention given by the District Court to the testimony and to the issues raised is reflected in its detailed and thoughtful opinion.
If the decision to dismiss had been motivated by her exercise of constitutionally protected rights, the plaintiff might have been entitled to reinstatement. Perry v. Sinderman, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972). But here the trial judge made an explicit finding to the contrary, which is supported by the evidence. Since he also found that there was just cause to terminate the plaintiff, regardless of the free speech issue, she “ought not to be able, by engaging in such conduct, to prevent [her] employer from assessing [her] performance record and reaching a decision not to rehire on the basis of that record, simply because the protected conduct makes the employer more certain of the correctness of its decision.” Mt. Healthy City Board of Education v. Doyle, - U.S. -, -, 97 S.Ct. 568, 575, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977).
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: 0