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 "natural persons". 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:
Burton C. BOVARD, Appellant, v. Philip YOUNG, individually and as Chairman, United States Civil Service Commission, et al., Appellees.
No. 14660.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued Feb. 24, 1959.
Decided March 19, 1959.
Mr. Ferdinand J. Mack, Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Arthur J. Hilland, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.
Mr. Donald B. MacGuineas, Attorney, Department of Justice, with whom Asst. Atty. Gen. George C. Doub and Mr. Samuel D. Slade, Attorney, Department of Justice, were on the brief, for ap-pellees. Messrs. Oliver Gasch, U. S. Atty., and Carl W. Belcher, Asst. U. S. Atty., also entered appearances for ap-pellees.
Before Wilbur K. Miller, Danaher and Bastían, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
This is an appeal from an order of the District Court dismissing plaintiff’s (appellant’s) complaint against the members of the Civil Service Commission and the Administrator of the Federal Housing Administration. Plaintiff sought restoration to his office as General Counsel of that Administration, claiming that his removal was illegal and void.
While the suit was pending in the District Court, two of the defendant Civil Service Commissioners resigned from the Commission and their successors were not substituted as parties within six months after taking office, as required by Fed.R.Civ.P. 25(d), 28 U.S.C.A.
Defendants (appellees) filed a motion to dismiss the case as abated for failure to comply with the above rule or, in the alternative, for summary judgment on the ground that there was no genuine issue of fact and therefore defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Thereupon, plaintiff filed a motion to join as defendants the new members of the Commission, and, as well, filed a cross motion for summary judgment.
Without passing on the motion to dismiss for failure to substitute parties, the court proceeded to hear the motions for summary judgment on the merits and, after argument, entered the order appealed from, denying plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment, denying plaintiff’s motion to join parties, granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment and dismissing the complaint.
We have, since the decision of the District Court, and on November 13, 1958, decided an identical case, Hicks v. Sum-merfield, 104 U.S.App.D.C.-, 261 F.24 752, in which we affirmed the action of the District Court in dismissing the complaint in that case because of failure to join the two new members of the Civil Service Commission, saying:
“We believe that under the circumstances of this case the Civil Service Commissioners were indispensable parties to the suit and, they not being before the court, the action was properly dismissed. Cf. Blackmar v. Guerre, 1952, 342 U.S. 512, 72 S.Ct.410, 96 L.Ed. 534; Benenati v. Young, 1955, 95 U.S.App. D.C. 120, 220 F.2d 383.” 261 F.2d at pages 753-754.
Plaintiff attempts to avoid the effect of Rule 25(d) by seeking to add the new Commissioners under Rule 21. That rule has no application whatsover to substitution of successor government officials as parties; and plaintiff’s interpretation of that rule would read Rule 25(d) out of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
The case will be remanded to the District Court with instructions to dismiss the complaint for failure to substitute successor parties.
We intimate no opinion as to the several motions for summary judgment.
Remanded.
. “When an officer of the United States, or of the District of Columbia, the Canal Zone, a territory, an insular possession, a state, county, city, or other governmental agency, is a party to an action and during its pendency dies, resigns, or otherwise ceases to hold office, the action may be continued and maintained by or against his successor, if within 6 months after the successor takes office it is satisfactorily shown to the court that there is a substantial need for so continuing and maintaining it. * * * ”
Fed.R.Civ.P. 6(b) provides that the court may not extend the time for taking action under Rule 25.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1