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:
BIRNBAUM v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE.
No. 7296.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
Feb. 6, 1941.
Harold L. Lipton, of Chicago, Ill., for petitioner.
Arthur A. Armstrong, Tax Division, Dept. of Justice, J. P. Wenchel, and Chas. E. Lowery, all of Washington, D.C., for respondent.
Before EVANS, SPARKS, and TREA-NOR, Circuit Judges.
TREANOR, Circuit Judge.
This cause comes to this Court on a petition for review of a decision of the United States Board of Tax Appeals. The case involves the determination of petitioner’s liability for a deficiency in federal income taxes for the years 1935 and 1936. The taxpayer claimed as deductions from his gross income certain amounts as ordinary and necessary business expenses within the meaning of the applicable statutory provisions. The Board of Tax Appeals refused to allow the claimed deductions.
Taxpayer resides at Chicago, Illinois, and is engaged in the business of obtaining reductions of taxes on real and personal property. Practically all of taxpayer’s business is referred to him by real estate men, lawyers and trustees. The Board of Tax Appeals found that “the claimed deductions are largely, if not all, payments alleged to have been made to such persons on account of cases referred by them,” and the evidence of the taxpayer supports such finding.
At the hearing before the Board the taxpayer testified in support of his claim and was the .only witness. Respondent, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, presented no evidence.
In its memorandum opinion the Board stated that taxpayer’s unsupported testimony was without sufficient probative value to carry the burden of proof of showing that the payments claimed had been made. Furthermore, the Board stated that petitioner’s testimony, even if believed, was insufficient to establish that such payments were made as ordinary and necessary business expenses.
The precise question for us to decide is whether the Board of Tax Appeals erred in refusing to accord controlling probative force to the taxpayer’s unsupported testimony.
The taxpayer testified that he paid the sums designated in his petitions to the individuals therein listed. He testified that it was necessary for him to pay such fees to the individuals listed “in order to procure and handle the business.” Taxpayer introduced in evidence the receipts of two different persons for specified sums received from the taxpayer “as and for fees due me in regard to various tax matters in which I rendered services.” He testified that the signatures to the receipts were subscribed by the persons who received the sums therein specified.
The burden was upon the taxpayer, in order to obtain the deduction claimed, td establish that the payments were actually made and that they were ordinary and necessary business expenses. On cross-examination the taxpayer testified that he had not been in touch with the individuals to whom he had paid fees for the reason (so he stated) that they might object to its being known that he had “paid them fees for sending business to me.” He further testified as follows: “I did not wish to give the names and addresses of individuals who occupy certain positions and who referred business to me when Sling my income tax return because if they learned I had they might not refer business to me in the future.”
Apparently the foregoing was intended as an explanation for the taxpayer’s failure to produce witnesses from among the people to whom he claimed payments had been made. Also, as pointed out in the brief of respondent, the two receipts introduced by taxpayer and received in evidence were not given in the normal course of business but were procured subsequently and merely state that the payments receipted for were for fees due in regard to various tax matters in which services were rendered.
It is apparent that whatever case taxpayer makes out in respect to the making of the’payments must rest upon the entirely unsupported statements of the taxpayer, since the only evidence of the genuineness of the receipts above referred to was the unsupported testimony of the taxpayer, which was not at all convincing when considered with all the other evidence adduced. But the most serious obstacle, as indicated in the opinion of the Board, is the absence of any evidence of facts which would enable the Board to determine whether the expenses were in fact ordinary and necessary business expenses. Unless the Board had been willing to permit the taxpayer to determine that question, it was necessary that the Board find that the payménts claimed were ordinary and necessary business expenses. As pointed out by the Board the taxpayer testified in effect that the payments made were for business expenses and were necessary for the conduct of his business; and the Board properly stated that the taxpayer was giving his own conclusion. The Board was entitled to have some evidence of the circumstances under which the payments were made and of the manner in which they operated as ordinary and necessary business expenses.
In O’Laughlin v. Helvering the court indicated the minimum requirement to establish the right to a deduction. We quote the following from the opinion: “When a deduction is claimed, the government has an undoubted right to demand a full disclosure of the facts on which the claim is based, for otherwise it would be at the mercy of the unscrupulous taxpayer. Taxation is not only practical — it is vital. The obligation of good faith and fair dealing in carrying out its provisions is reciprocal and, as the government should never be overreaching or tyrannical, neither should a taxpayer be permitted to escape payment by the concealment of material facts.”
In Quock Ting v. United States the Supreme Court pointed out that even uncontradicted testimony need not be accepted by a court The following statement is from the opinion of the court: “Undoubtedly, as a general rule, positive testimony as to a particular fact, uncontradicted by any one, should control the decision of the court; but that rule admits of many exceptions. There may be such an inherent improbability in the statements of a witness as to induce the court or jury to disregard his evidence, even in the absence of any direct conflicting testimony. He may be contradicted by the facts he states as completely as by direct adverse testimony; and there may be so many omissions in his account of particular transactions, or of his own conduct, as to discredit his whole story.”
We are of the opinion that petitioner fails to show that the Board of Tax Appeals erred in refusing to hold that taxpayer’s evidence was sufficient to establish that the sums for which deductions were claimed represented actual payments for ordinary and necessary business expenses. The record does not present evidence which required the Board, as a matter of law, to so decide.
The decision of the Board of Tax Appeals is affirmed.
65 App.D.C. 135, 81 F.2d 269, 270.
140 U.S. 417, 11 S.Ct. 733, 734, 851, 35 L.Ed. 501.

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

Choices:

Answer: 0