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 respondents in the case that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the respondent is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

Opinion:
Marie Melrose MONTI and California State Employees Association, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, Raymond Barrier and Donald Vial, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 77-3731.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Sept. 26, 1978.
Helen B. Culiner, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Gordon Zane, San Francisco, Cal., for defendants-appellees.
Before TRASK and SNEED, Circuit Judges, and RICHEY, District Judge.
Hon. Mary Anne Richey, United States District Judge, for the District of Arizona, sitting by designation.
SNEED, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs appeal from an order of the district court denying their motion for class certification. In light of the Court’s recent decision in Gardner v. Westinghouse Broadcasting Co., -U.S. -, 98 S.Ct. 2451, 57 L.Ed.2d 364 (1978), this court lacks appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) to review the class certification denial. Alternatively, plaintiffs seek a writ of mandamus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1651, to compel the district court to certify the class. The issuance of such a writ is inappropriate in this case. We therefore dismiss the appeal.
I.
Plaintiff-appellant Monti brought this suit as a class action against the California Department of Industrial Relations (Department) pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e to 2000e-17. Appellant Monti later joined the California State Employees Association as co-plaintiff. Appellants charged the Department with systematically engaging in a pattern of employment discrimination against female employees. Specifically, appellants accused the Department of restricting female employment to certain divisions within the Department; limiting female employment to the lower-salaried professional levels within each division; and denying female employees promotional opportunities equal to those available to male employees. Plaintiffs prayed for declaratory relief, a permanent injunction, and compensatory promotions and awards. Plaintiffs moved for an order certifying their action as a class action on behalf of themselves and a class of past, present, and future female employees, applicants, and potential applicants. After a complete hearing, the district court denied the motion to certify the class action in an order filed October 25, 1977. Appellants perfected their appeal to this court without obtaining a § 1292(b) certification from the district judge. Upon appellants’ motion this court ordered a stay of the proceedings in the district court and expedited the hearing on appeal.
II.
Subsequent to the filing of appellants’ appeal, but prior to oral argument before this court, the Supreme Court rendered its decision in Gardner v. Westinghouse Broadcasting Co., -U.S. -, 98 S.Ct. 2451, 57 L.Ed.2d 364 (1978). Gardner controls the disposition of this case. A district court’s denial of a motion for class certification may not immediately be appealed under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). Gardner, 98 S.Ct. at 2452. The exception to the congressionally established policy against piecemeal appeals embodied in § 1292(a)(1) is a narrow one “keyed to the ‘need to permit litigants to effectually challenge interlocutory orders of serious, perhaps irreparable, consequence.’ ” Id. at 2453 (quoting Baltimore Contractors, Inc. v. Bodinger, 348 U.S. 176, 181, 75 S.Ct. 249, 99 L.Ed. 233 (1955)). As was true in Gardner, the order denying class certification in this case does not have any such irreparable effect. It is subject to review both prior to and after final judgment, it does not affect the merits of appellants’ own claims, and it does not pass on the legal sufficiency of any claims for injunctive relief. See Gardner, 98 S.Ct. at 2453-54.
Although Gardner was announced during the pendency of this appeal, we are convinced that no “manifest injustice” will result from our decision to adhere to the principle that “an appellate court must apply the law in effect at the time that it renders its decision.” Bradley v. School Board of Richmond, 416 U.S. 696, 711, 714, 94 S.Ct. 2006, 2017, 40 L.Ed.2d 476 (1974) (quoting Thorpe v. Housing Authority of Durham, 393 U.S. 268, 281, 89 S.Ct. 518, 21 L.Ed.2d 474 (1969)); Wasserman v. Municipal Court of Alhambra Judicial District, 543 F.2d 723, 725 (9th Cir. 1976). Appellants also have urged this court to exercise its authority to issue a writ of mandamus compelling the district court to certify the class. We are convinced that such an act is singularly inappropriate in this case and would emasculate attempts to preserve “the integrity of the congressional policy against piecemeal appeals.” Gardner, 98 S.Ct. at 2454 (quoting Switzerland Cheese Association, Inc. v. E. Horne’s Market, Inc., 385 U.S. 23, 25, 87 S.Ct. 193, 17 L.Ed.2d 23 (1966)). See Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, - U.S. -, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978).
Accordingly, this appeal is dismissed.
DISMISSED.

Question: What is the total number of respondents in the case that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 3