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:
SHEET METAL WORKERS’ INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AFL-CIO, Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association, AFL-CIO, Local No. 573, Larry Higer, Francis Fry and Elmer Pruitt, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. BARBER-COLMAN COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 16025.
United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.
May 26, 1967.
Edward J. Fahy, Stephen A. Ellis, Shultz, Fahy & Street, Rockford, Ill., for appellant.
Donald W. Fisher, Toledo, Ohio, Lawrence J. Ferolie, Rockford, Ill., for appellees.
Before HASTINGS, Chief Judge, and SCHNACKENBERG and CUMMINGS, Circuit Judges.
CUMMINGS, Circuit Judge.
This suit was brought by two Unions and three employees to compel Barber-Colman Company (“Barber”) to arbitrate a dispute arising under an agreement between the Unions and Barber. Federal jurisdiction was conferred by Section 301(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act (29 USC § 185(a)).
In June 1964, the Unions called a strike at four of Barber’s plants after negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement had collapsed. The three plaintiff-employees of Barber participated in the strike which persisted until October 15, 1964. The Unions and Barber then agreed in principle upon a new collective bargaining agreement, which was executed on October 21, 1964.
During the strike, the three individual plaintiffs and 17 other Barber employees were discharged on the ground of alleged misconduct in connection with their strike activities. The three individual plaintiffs were indicted by a Winnebago County, Illinois, grand jury on September 15, 1964; the indictment charged them with arson and criminal damage to property. On December 14, 1964, their motion to suppress evidence was granted, and a week later, on motion of the State’s Attorney, the indictment was nolle prossed.
On October 15, 1964, Barber and the Unions signed a Settlement Agreement dealing with the three individual employees and the 17 other striking employees who had been charged with violence. The Settlement Agreement provided as follows:
[1] Inasmuch as the company has suspended the following employees pending the determination of their status: Larry Higer, Francis Fry and Elmer Pruitt, and Ronald Bowen, Del-mos Graves, Laurence Wool-bright, Melvin Morelock, Jr., Frank R. Podeszwa, John Blaser, Clarence North, Virgil Johnson, John H. Lenz, Tom Ward, Dave Bevens, Frederick Joeston, Velmer White, Randolph Gregg, William B. Tratnik, Lawrence Parr, George R. Toon and it is hereby provided as follows:
[2] Higer, Fry and Pruitt can choose to have their status determined by an arbitrator, or can choose to have their status determined by the decision of the criminal court where they are now under indictment. If they choose to have the criminal court decision fix their status then: if any one is found guilty he will be considered discharged, but if he is found innocent, he shall be reinstated to employment with back pay to the date of this agreement. If they select arbitration an arbitrator will be designated by the Company and the Union in the manner provided in Article V.
[3] Criminal Court proceedings will not affect the status of the other above named employees and shall not be considered in the arbitration procedure hereinafter provided.
[4] All others shall have the right to quit or have their status determined by arbitration. The personnel record of an employee who quits will reflect only the fact that he quit.
[5] If they elect arbitration a different arbitrator shall be selected by the Company and the Union in the manner provided in Article V.
[6] The arbitrator’s decision in these cases shall not be used as a basis or a precedent for any future arbitration.
[7] The arbitrator shall be empowered to hear all the eases and to determine whether the employees, or any of them, shall be reinstated to their jobs and the condition of reinstatement, if any.
[8] Such employees shall not return to work until their status is determined under this procedure.
The second paragraph of the Settlement Agreement permitted plaintiffs Hi-ger, Fry and Pruitt to have their status with Barber determined by an arbitrator or by the criminal court in the arson case. These employees chose the second alternative.
After the indictment against Higer, Fry and Pruitt was nolle prossed, Barber recalled them to work and offered them net back pay from October 15, 1964, the date of the Settlement Agreement, to December 27, 1964, the date on which they resumed work. However, the Unions and these three individuals contend that any wages the trio earned from outside sources are not deductible from the wages they would have earned at Barber during said period, and also that no other deductions are permissible.
After Barber refused to award full back pay to these three employees, they and the Unions demanded that the back pay dispute be referred to arbitration. When Barber rejected arbitration, this suit was filed. The District Court ordered arbitration, and we affirm.
In opposing arbitration, Barber argues that paragraphs 1 and 8 of the Settlement Agreement apply to all 20 suspended employees, that paragraph 2 applies only to the three individual plaintiffs, and that the remaining paragraphs apply only to the 17 other suspended employees. Even accepting this argument, we do not think that arbitration of the back pay claims of these three employees was foreclosed when it proved impossible to have their status determined by the criminal court. Because a decision of the criminal court could not be obtained, Higer, Fry and Pruitt should have been permitted to select arbitration. 2 Restatement of the Law of Contracts § 469. Under paragraph 2, the parties certainly never intended this dispute to be resolved in civil judicial proceedings. Yet Barber now asserts that this is the only avenue open to these three employees.
As the Supreme Court stated in United Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co., 863 U.S. 574, 582-583, 80 S.Ct. 1347, 1353, 4 L.Ed.2d 1409:
“An order to arbitrate the particular grievance should not be denied unless it may be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted dispute. Doubts should be resolved in favor of coverage.”
Under this test, it cannot be said that paragraph 2 of the Settlement Agreement now prohibits arbitration of this dispute.
As to the back pay issue, it should be noted that the other 17 suspended employees have already proceeded to arbitration pursuant to the third through seventh paragraphs of the Settlement Agreement. Where back pay was awarded to any of the 17, the arbitrator applied the usual mitigation principles in computing the amount due. We agree with the District Court that the doctrine of mitigation also appears applicable to Higer’s, Fry’s and Pruitt’s back pay. However, under the Settlement Agreement, the question whether their claim for unreduced back pay is sham or frivolous is for the arbitrator. Local Union No. 483 v. Shell Oil Company, 369 F.2d 526, 530 (7th Cir.1966). Article V of the collective bargaining contract provides that his award shall be final and binding.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
. Article V refers to. the grievance procedure provision of the October 21, 1964, collective bargaining agreement between the parties.

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: 1