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:
Roxie P. JONES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Civil Service Commission, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 79-1083.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Argued Jan. 6, 1981.
Decided May 21, 1982.
R. Stephens Morrison, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.
Canella E. Henrichs, Asst. U. S. Atty., Frederick H. Branding, Asst. U. S. Atty., Chief, Civ. Div., Dan K. Webb, U. S. Atty., Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee.
Before SWYGERT and FAIRCHILD, Senior Circuit Judges, and SPRECHER, Circuit Judge.
Judge Sprecher heard oral argument and participated in the conference which followed. He died May 15, 1982 and did not participate in the preparation or approval of this opinion.
FAIRCHILD, Senior Circuit Judge.
Plaintiff sued the United States for payment of Civil Service Retirement benefits. On cross motions for summary judgment, the district court entered judgment for the United States. Plaintiff appealed. We reverse.
Roy Jones, deceased husband of plaintiff, was an employee of the Postal Service and on September 16, 1966, applied for retirement. Roy Jones and Roxie Jones were married October 6,1966. Roy Jones’ retirement became effective the following day, October 7, 1966. After Roy Jones died in 1974, plaintiff filed a claim with the Civil Service Commission for a survivor’s annuity. Her claim was rejected by the Bureau of Retirement, Insurance and Occupational Health, and, on appeal, by the Appeals Review Board. The denial was upheld by the district court.
The controlling statute in this case is 5 U.S.C. § 8341(b) which, at the time of Roy Jones’ retirement, provided in pertinent part:
If an employee or Member dies after having retired under this subchapter and is survived by a spouse to whom he was married at the time of retirement, the spouse is entitled to an annuity ... unless the employee or Member has notified the Commission in writing at the time of retirement that he does not desire his spouse to receive this annuity. The annuity of the spouse commences on the day after the retired employee or Member dies.
Plaintiff Roxie Jones was married to Roy “at the time of retirement” and was thus entitled to an annuity after his death unless Roy, at the time of retirement, notified the Commission in writing that he did not desire her to receive the annuity. Roy gave no express written notice in terms of the statute. The Government’s defense is, in substance, that there was constructive or implied notice sufficient under the circumstances. The district court agreed.
The applicable Regulation permitted an employee to file his application for an annuity “within 30 days before, on, or at any time after he reaches the requisite retirement age.” 5 C.F.R. § 831.501, (revised as of January 1, 1964). Jones applied some three weeks before retirement. He was then unmarried. There is nothing to show whether at the date of application he had already planned his marriage. Neither does it appear that his employer or the Commission knew until after his death that he did marry on October 6 and was “married at the time of retirement.”
The Civil Service Commission had created Standard Form No. 2801 to enable a government worker to apply for retirement. The only portion of the form (reproduced as an Appendix to this opinion) which calls for the choice regarding survivor’s annuity provided by 5 U.S.C. § 8341(b) is labeled “F. Types of Annuity: Married Applicants Only.” Part 1 of F. reads in part: “If you are married, you will receive this type of annuity [Annuity with survivor benefit to widow or widower, a reduced annuity for the employee] unless you choose the annuity in F.2.” Part 2 of F. has a space for initialling a statement using the terms prescribed by § 8341(b), “(I do not desire my wife (or husband) to receive a survivor annuity benefit after my death.)”
The portion in which Roy Jones placed his initials is labeled “G. Types of Annuity: Unmarried Applicants Only (Including Widowed and Divorced).” G. provided a choice between 1. “Annuity Without Survivor Benefit,” and 2. “Annuity With Survivor Benefit To Named Person Having An Insurable Interest.” Jones initialed 1. Plaintiff had no insurable interest at that date. Thus his failure to initial G.2., naming her, should not be deemed an election to exclude her if she became his spouse.
The form contains no provision for indicating the intent, as to a possible spouse’s survivor benefits, of an unmarried applicant who applies before retirement.
Where a spouse is entitled to a survivor-ship annuity, the annuity paid the retired employee is smaller. Jones received unreduced retirement benefits until his death in 1974. Thus he received what he should have received if he had given the appropriate written notice.
The Government points out that Jones could have delayed in applying until after his marriage, and argues that by making his application before marriage he rejected survivor benefits for a spouse. The Regulations would have permitted him to change his choice of option before final adjudication of his claim, a period of about two months. 5 C.F.R. § 831.601. The Government argues that his failure to do so constituted notice to the Commission that he did not desire to provide a survivor benefit to his wife. The district court agreed. As already stated, Jones accepted a greater annuity than he would have been entitled to if his wife were deemed entitled to a survivor’s annuity.
It is true that Jones could have done these things, and that he received a greater amount of money than if he had done them. Whatever one’s view of the equities between Jones and the Government, we think that plaintiff spouse is entitled to a literal application of the statute.
Although Congress permits a married employee to eliminate his spouse’s entitlement to an annuity as a survivor, and thereby obtain a larger annuity during the employee’s lifetime, it has prescribed a particular and unequivocal procedure for accomplishing this result.
The present law providing automatic survivor annuity rights to the spouse in the absence of written notice to the contrary was a deliberate change from earlier law. Before 1962, the employee was to receive the unreduced annuity unless he affirmatively elected the reduced annuity and designated his spouse. Public Law 854, July 31, 1956, 70 Stat. 753, Sec. 9(g).
In 1962, the matter was changed so that the employee receives the reduced annuity and his spouse becomes entitled to a surviv- or’s annuity unless the retiree gives written notice to the contrary. The change “was part of the Postal Service and Federal Employees Salary Act of 1962, which amended § 10(a)(1) of the Civil Service Retirement Act so as to read substantially as did 5 U.S.C. § 8341(b) at the time of Roy Jones’ retirement. Public Law 87-793, Sec. 1103(b), approved October 11, 1962, 76 Stat. 870. The reversal of the procedure was mentioned several times in the legislative history set out in U.S.Code Cong. & Ad. News, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., [1962] vol. 2, pp. 3034ff, e.g. at 3083. The change was clearly brought to Congressional attention.
From Jones’ failure to do some of the things the Government now suggests, the Government would have us infer an election preventing his wife’s entitlement. We think there is strong statutory policy against cutting off her rights other than by the written notice prescribed.
Plaintiff concedes that there should be an adjustment in favor of the Government representing over-payments received by Roy Jones during his life. We leave the terms of the adjustment to the consideration of the district court on remand unless the parties can agree.
The judgment of the district court is reversed and the cause remanded for the determination of the amount of benefits due plaintiff and entry of judgment for the plaintiff in accordance with this opinion.
Reversed and Remanded.
APPENDIX
. The current statute is similar but also extends the same survivor’s annuity benefit to a person who marries the employee or Member after retirement, again in the absence of written notice at the time of retirement that the employee does not desire “any” spouse to receive his annuity. 5 U.S.C. § 8341(b)(1). Eligibility for benefits is determined by the statute in force at the time of the employee’s retirement. Crawford v. United States, 609 F.2d 1185, 1188 (5th Cir. 1980).

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