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:
In re REALTY ASSOCIATES SECURITIES CORPORATION.
No. 315, Docket 20277.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
July 11, 1946.
Hooker, Alley & Duncan, of New York City (James B. Alley, of New York City, of counsel), for Realty Associates Securities Corporation, debtor.
Root, Ballantine, Harlan, Bushby & Palmer, of New York City (William P. Palmer, Irving L. Schanzer, and L. Robert Driver, Jr., all of New York City, of counsel), for appellant, Consolidated Realty Corporation.
Newman & Bisco, of New York City (Perry A. Hull, of New York City, of counsel), for appellant Manufacturers Trust Company and pro se.
Lewis, Marks & Kanter, of Brooklyn, N. Y. (Julius Silver, of New York City, Lloyd B. Kanter, of Brooklyn, N. Y., and Bernard D. Cahn, of Washington, D.C., of counsel), for Bondholders’ Protective Committee and for appellants Lewis, Marks & Kanter and Julius Silver.
Herrick & Feinstein, of Brooklyn, N. Y., pro se.
Percival E. Jackson, of New York City (Theodore N. Tarlau, of New York City, of counsel), pro se.
Joseph R. Margulies, of New York City, pro se and for appellees Ernestine Needles and others, bondholders.
Archibald Palmer, of New York City, pro se.
Before SWAN, CLARK, and FRANK, Circuit Judges.
FRANK, Circuit Judge.
1. We think the services for which the lower court allowed compensation were, as it held, rendered “in connection with the administration of an estate” (see § 242),- and were “beneficial in the administration of the estate” within the meaning of § 243. Tírese services surely were connected with the administration. Also, they were “beneficial” ; an estate, under Chapter X, is administered primarily for the creditors; and administration which aids in bringing about full payment of all creditors, while leaving the debtor with an equity, is patently beneficial to the estate.
Accordingly, we need not and do not consider these alternative suggestions: (a) The dismissal order was, in legal effect, approval of a plan, an approval brought about by the services in question, (b) Debtor’s motion for dismissal was a motion for leave to discontinue which the court could properly grant on condition that the debtor pay for those services, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, rule 41, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, and General Order No. 37, 11 U.S.C.A. following section 53.
2. The trial judge found the services not needlessly duplicative. As no abuse of discretion appears, we will not disturb his judgment.
3. The Bondholders’ Protective Committee and its counsel rest their appeal in large part on the failure to pay them for services rendered before the debtor filed its petition. As these services consisted chiefly of successful pre-petition efforts to induce bondholders not to accept debtor’s pre-petition proposal, we think they were not directly beneficial to the estate. In re Ulen & Co., 2 Cir., 130 F.2d 303. On the facts, we see no reason to disturb the judge’s conclusion as to the worth of the compensable services either of the committee or its counsel. There is more room for doubt about the amounts awarded for the services of Manufacturers Trust Company, the indenture trustee, and its counsel. Nevertheless, since the judge, in charge of the proceedings, was familiar, as we are not, with the actual work done and therefore far better able to appraise it than we can from mere study of the paper record, we are unwilling to disturb his conclusion.
Affirmed.
In not considering them, we are not to be understood as holding them without merit;
Although we need not and do not adopt it, we confess that we have much sympathy with the following suggestion made in the brief of Herrick and Feinstein, appellees: “Through the medium of the proceeding initiated by the Debtor, a solvent corporation which only required additional time to refinance its obligations, ' procured such time for a period of eighteen months. It is ridiculous to suppose, that having gained all the time it needed and having been afforded the protection of the court against the dissipation of its assets through forced liquidation, it should be relieved from the burden of paying the costs and expenses which would have been an obligation of the estate had further time been required and obtained through a proposed plan of reorganization.”
In re Long Island Properties, Inc., 2 Cir., 150 F.2d 313.

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: 99