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:
STEELE v. HARRISON et al.
Court of Appeals of District of Columbia.
Submitted April 3, 1929.
Decided May 6, 1929.
Petition for Rehearing Denied May 25, 1929.
No. 4746.
Walter C. Balderston and Leonard J. Mather, both of Washington, D. C., for appellant.
R. B. Dickey, of Washington, D. C., for appellees.
Before MARTIN, Chief Justice, and ROBB and VAN ORSDEL, Associate Justices.
MARTIN, Chief Justice.
The appellant as plaintiff in the lower court filed a bill of complaint against the appellees, praying that a certain deed of conveyance theretofore executed by her be set aside upon the ground of fraud and also upon the ground that it was obnoxious to the proviso of section 1155, D. C. Code (then iu force), providing that no married woman shall have power to make any contract as surety or guarantor. The lower court heard the evidence and dismissed appellant’s bill. This appeal is now prosecuted upon a record containing the pleadings and the substance of the evidence heard by the trial court. We have carefully considered both pleadings and evidence, and we are convinced that the controlling facts in the case are in substance as follows:
On May 15, 1926, the appellant, Elsie A. Steele, was, and still is, a married woman, the wife of Lewis P. Steele, and was the owner as tenant in common with Blanche A. Davis of certain real estate situate in the District of Columbia, subject to certain trust incumbrances which are not in question in this case. At that time appellant’s husband Lewis P. Steele, and William E. Davis, husband of appellant’s cotenant Blanche A. Davis, were partners engaged in the real estate business in the District of Columbia, and were in need of funds with which to meet their obligations. They accordingly formulated a plan of having their wives place a trust deed upon the aforesaid property wherewith to secure funds for the use of the partnership. Pursuant to this plan appellant and her cotenant, acting under the direction of their husbands, on May 15, 1926, executed and delivered to Francis L. Davis, brother of said William E. Davis, a deed of conveyance in fee simple for the real estate aforesaid, without any consideration whatever- moving to the grantors. On the same day said Francis L. Davis executed a deed of trust upon the property to> appellees Raymond B. Dickey and Sidney B. Harrison, to secure one H. L. Timbelake in the sum of $7,355. On May 25, 1936, however, this trust was released of record, and on the same day a trust deed was executed to the same trustees to secure the firm of Davis & Steele, in the same sum, to wit, $7,355> and this obligation was indorsed by Davis & Steele to Sue K. Harrison. On the same day, to wit, May 25, 1926, Francis L. Davis reconveyed the property to appellant and her eotenant subject to the aforesaid trust in favor of Steele and Davis in the sum of $7,355.
The appellant’s bill of complaint attacks the deed of conveyance executed by her and. her cotenant to Francis L. Davis and prays that it he set aside on the ground that appellant was induced to sign the same by the fraudulent representations of certain of the appellees. This charge, we think, is not sustained by the evidence. Appellant also attacks the deed of trust placed by Francis L. Davis upon the property to secure Steele and Davis in the sum of $7,355, upon the ground that the trust deed if sustained would subject her property as security for the indebtedness of Steele and Davis, thus obligating her as an accommodation surety for them in violation of the proviso of section 1155, D. C. Code (since repealed [see 44 Stat. 676]) which provided that no married woman shall have power to make any contract as surety or guarantor, or as accommodation drawer, acceptor, maker, or indorser.
We think the latter contention of appellant should he sustained. The circumstances surrounding the transaction in question give unmistakable proof of the fact that Francis L. Davis, as grantee in the deed of conveyance, was acting merely as the agent and trustee of appellant and her cotenant in order to place a trust upon their property to serve as security for the debts of their husbands. This was evidently done in order to escape the express provisions of the statute prohibiting such suretyship. Equity, however, looks through the form of the transaction to its substance, and in such case as this the.law follows the equitable rule. It results accordingly that the trust given by Francis L. Davis is subject to the same infirmities as if given directly by appellant, and is therefore void.
In Waters v. Pearson, 39 App. D. C. 10, 16, Chief Justice Shepard spoke for this court as follows: “1. Section 1155 of the Code (31 Stat. at L. 1374, chap. 854) confers general power upon married women to engage in business, to contract, to sue separately, etc., as fully and freely as if unmarried, but concludes with this proviso: ‘That no married woman shall have power to make any contract as surety or guarantor, or as accommodation drawer, acceptor, maker, or indorser.’ By this proviso married women were prohibited from binding themselves as surety for others. But the limitation would be of little or no benefit if it could be evaded by the mere form of the contract entered into. If the mere form of the contract, making the married woman appear as a principal* instead of a surety, would serve to prevent judicial investigation of the real nature of her obligation, the provision of the statute would become a dead letter. The statute declares a rule of public policy and its object is to be executed by courts of law as well as equity. Any one may defend an action on a contract by proof that it is in violation of a statute. E. Bement & Sons v. National Harrow Co., 186 U. S. 76-88, 22 S. Ct. 747, 46 L. Ed. 1058-1068. See Fisk Rubber Co. v. Muller, 42 App. D. C. 49; Schwartz v. Sacks, 55 App. D. C. 87, 2 F.(2d) 188; Howard v. Quinn, 55 Wash. Law Rep. 527, affirmed Bradbury v. Howard, 58 App. D. C. 383, 31 F.(2d) 222.
Tbe decree of the lower court is reversed with costs, and this cause is remanded for such further proceedings as are not inconsistent herewith.
Reversed.

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