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:
John N. BOWERS and Alma S. Bowers, Appellants, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Appellee.
No. 83-1082.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Submitted March 17, 1983.
Decided Aug. 31, 1983.
John N. Bowers and Alma S. Bowers, pro se.
Kenneth W. Gideon, Chief Counsel, Christina Burkholder, Chief Counsel, N. Jerold Cohen, Chief Counsel Internal Revenue Service; M. Carr Ferguson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tax Division, Dept, of Justice, Washington, D.C., for appellee.
Before RUSSELL, Circuit Judge, and HAYNSWORTH and BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
This case arose when the Commissioner of Internal Revenue disallowed a business bad debt deduction claimed by the taxpayer, Bowers. The Tax Court upheld the Commissioner’s disallowance on the grounds that Bowers was not in the trade or business of lending money and he did not show the loan was proximately related to his trade or business. On appeal, we agreed the worthless loan could not be deducted as a business bad debt on either of these theories, but we remanded the ease for consideration and findings with respect to the taxpayer’s contention “that his sole or predominant motivation for the loan was to maintain the enhanced level of his income as an employee of the corporation resulting from the handling of the [relevant] transactions.” Bowers v. Commissioner, 678 F.2d 509, 510 (4th Cir.1982). The Tax Court, on remand, concluded again that the deduction was not allowable because the taxpayer’s “dominant motivation in making the loan was personal and not related to his position as an employee of John N. Bowers Realty, Inc., his business.”
The taxpayer now appeals the Tax Court’s most recent decision. We conclude the Tax Court clearly erred in its findings, and, accordingly, we reverse.
I.
The taxpayer, at all times pertinent to this case, was president and sole shareholder of John N. Bowers Realty, Inc., which engaged in general real estate sales. He was also a real estate broker.
Bowers had no fixed salary or a certain commission on any sales he made or for which he was the listing agent. Rather, he drew from the corporation as compensation the lion’s share of whatever profits were generated. Indeed, the taxpayer’s records indicate that although corporate profits, before deduction of any compensation to taxpayer, from 1969 to 1975 totalled more than $187,000, the corporation in 1975 actually had some $3,000 less in retained, accumulated earnings than it had six years before. And of the $187,000 profit generated over the six year period, the taxpayer drew out for himself some $169,000 in compensation.
George Basiliko was top executive officer and owner of G & B Real Estate. In March of 1972, he purchased all the stock of Crown Oil and Wax Co., Inc., and was appointed Chairman of the Board. In 1972, 1973 and 1974, John N. Bowers Realty, Inc. acted as an agent in various real estate transactions for Basiliko, G & B, Crown Oil, or some combination of Basiliko’s ventures. For the fiscal years 1972-74, John N. Bowers Realty, Inc. received some $77,000 in commissions from transactions involving Basiliko or Basiliko affiliates, out of a total of $395,-000 in commissions. In 1972 and 1973, commissions traceable to Basiliko accounted for about $76,000 of the total of $275,000, or over 25%.
On May 30, 1972, seventeen days after Bowers received a $40,000 commission from the sale of seven properties to Basiliko, Basiliko asked Bowers for a $10,000 loan. Bowers personally made the loan to Basiliko as an individual, not to any of his business concerns. Bowers did not have his own corporation make the loan because it did not have sufficient monies to fund the loan at the time. The loan agreement contained no provision for interest. Basiliko never repaid the loan, and it became worthless in December of 1974.
II.
The Tax Court, in considering Bowers’ motivation for the loan, concluded that
While the petitioner has shown by [this] evidence that both he and his corporation profited from dealings with Basiliko, he has not shown that these profits are in any way related to the loan at issue in this case. Petitioner has not shown the loan to be related to his enhanced income.
Bowers v. Commissioner, T.C.Memo. 1982-635 (1982).
Although there are detailed criteria for determination of the proper tax characterization of various financial transactions, they do not counsel disregard of common sense or financial realities. We cannot agree with the Tax Court that it is realistic to characterize this loan as unrelated to corporate profits and personal profits through enhanced income. The taxpayer’s records showed:
It is clear from the above and from what has been said before that commissions from Basiliko contributed significantly to the corporation’s profits, especially in 1972 and 1973. It is further evident that profits generated in the corporation were passed through to Bowers individually. Over an eight year period when corporate profits totalled about $204,000, Bowers drew out for himself almost 90%, or $181,000. In 1972 and 1973, when the largest Basiliko commissions accrued to the company, the benefit inuring to Bowers each year by way of compensation was more than four times what he was able to take out of the company in 1971 or 1974.
Given the great benefits derived by the corporation and Bowers individually, from Basiliko’s business, Basiliko’s loan request undoubtedly was given careful consideration by Bowers with a view toward the possible consequences of denying the request. Particularly where Bowers had in hand sufficient funds to make the loan, funds which derived from a Basiliko transaction and of which Basiliko very likely was aware, Bowers no doubt made the business decision that he thought the circumstances required, in order to protect future corporate profits and thus his own enhanced income. We think it would defy logic and business reality to conclude in these circumstances that the loan was not made by Bowers solely or predominantly to maintain the enhanced level of his income resulting from the handling of the Basiliko transactions.
III.
Accordingly, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
. The taxpayer’s records showed:
. We can find no suggestion in the record that there was some nonbusiness relationship between Basiliko and Bowers that might invite another characterization of the circumstances.
Included as part of Col. 2

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: 2