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:
Erlene S. POSEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. REYNOLDS METALS COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 27992.
United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.
Jan. 7, 1970.
Neil Taylor, Jr., Russellville, Ala., of Taylor & Taylor, Russellville, Ala., for plaintiff-appellant.
Clopper Almon, Vincent McAlister, Sheffield, Ala., for defendant-appellee.
Before BELL, AINSWORTH and CARSWELL, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM;
After the District Court granted partial summary judgment dismissing appellant’s claim for long-term disability benefits, a pretrial order was entered into by the parties by which it was stipulated that “the plaintiff’s claim has evolved into one count following numerous pleadings. In this count plaintiff claims of the defendant damages in the amount of $3,624 allegedly due under the Reynolds Security Program Sick Pay Benefits.” The case was called for trial and a consent judgment in favor of plaintiff was entered in the sum of $736. The remaining count was thus disposed of.
If, despite the pretrial order, stipulations and judgment entered into, there still remains the question of the propriety of summary judgment in favor of defendant-appellee as to appellant’s claim for long-term disability benefits, it is our view that summary judgment was proper under the circumstances. It is clear from the exhibits and affidavits that the claim for long-term benefits is properly against Continental Casualty Company which issued a policy group insurance in favor of employees of defendant Reynolds Metals, of which appellant was one. The long-term disability plan was a voluntary one on the part of the employees and premium payments were made by employees by deductions from their salaries at Reynolds, which sums were then forwarded to Continental. The pamphlet literature distributed by Reynolds to its employees clearly stated that the LTD benefits were payable under the provisions of a group policy issued to Reynolds by Continental Casualty Company. Thereafter appellant received a certificate of insurance from Continental Casualty Company describing the benefits in detail. (App. p. 66.) There can be no dispute under the various exhibits and affidavits submitted by the parties that the long-term disability benefits were the liability solely of Continental Casualty Company, and not of defendant. The court below apparently also took judicial cognizance of the pen-dency of a suit by appellant for the same long-term disability benefits against Continental Casualty Company originally filed in Circuit Court of Colbert County, Alabama, subsequently removed to United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, from which the instant appeal is taken. That suit, and not this one, will ultimately determine whether appellant is entitled to such benefits.
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