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:
Robert C. WENZEL, James F. Moulthrop and Donald Wilson, Appellants, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, and John Hoh, Kenneth Carroll, David Greenhut, Dominic Accetta, Angelo Ferraro, and A.J. Grau, Former Trustees of the Brewery Workers Pension Fund, Appellees. NEW YORK STATE TEAMSTERS CONFERENCE PENSION AND RETIREMENT FUND, William H. Mosley, Sr., Administrator, John Delguidice, Wayne W. Woodhead, and Anthony J. Dunadee, Appellants, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, and John Hoh, Kenneth Carroll, David Greenhut, Dominic Accetta, Angelo Ferraro, and A.J. Grau, Former Trustees of the Brewery Workers Pension Fund, Appellees. NEW YORK STATE TEAMSTERS CONFERENCE PENSION AND RETIREMENT FUND, William H. Mosley, Sr., Administrator, Appellant, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, and John Hoh, Kenneth Carroll, David Greenhut, Dominic Accetta, Angelo Ferraro, and A.J. Grau, Former Trustees of the Brewery Workers Pension Fund, Appellees.
Nos. 1238-1240, Dockets 83-4007, 83-4009 and 83-4011.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Argued May 16, 1983.
Decided May 20, 1983.
Robert D. Whoriskey, New York City (Robert S. Lipton, Sharon A. Lundstrom, Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, Andrew J. Maloney, Lawrence V. Kelly, Maloney, Viviani, Higgins & Kelly, New York City, of counsel), for appellants.
Michael J. Roach, Atty., Tax Div., Dept, of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Glenn L. Archer, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Michael L. Paup and Richard Farber, Attys., Tax Div., Dept, of Justice, Washington, D.C., of counsel), for appellee I.R.S.
Bettina B. Plevan, New York City (Edward Silver, I. Philip Sipser, Elizabeth A. Alcorn, Claude I. Hersh, Robert C. Finkel, Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn, Sipser, Weinstock, Harper, Dorn & Liebowitz, New York City, of counsel), for appellees Trustees of the Brewery Workers Pension Fund.
Before MANSFIELD, MESKILL and KEARSE, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Appellants Wenzel, Moulthrop, and Wilson (No. 83-4007) petitioned the Tax Court for a declaratory judgment revoking as invalid a September 28, 1976 determination letter of the Buffalo District Director of the Internal Revenue Service to the effect that a 1973 merger of the Brewery Workers Pension Fund (“Brewery Workers Fund”) into the New York State Teamsters Conference Pension and Retirement Fund (“Teamsters Fund”) did not affect the qualified and tax exempt status of the merged plan and that the merger of the two funds satisfied the requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Appellants also sought a declaration, inter alia, that a “partial termination” of the Brewery Workers Fund occurred within the meaning of 26 U.S.C. § 411(d)(3) prior to its merger with the Teamsters Fund, resulting in a “spin-off” of the terminated portion of the Brewery Workers Fund and relieving the Teamsters Fund of any unfunded liabilities for the terminated portion.
Appellants Mosley, et a1. (No. 83-4009) petitioned the Tax Court for related relief, including a declaration that an October 25, 1978 letter from the Brooklyn District Director’s office to the Teamsters Fund requesting the latter to give notice to participants in that fund of the September 28, 1976 determination was also invalid.
In the third related case, No. 83-4011, appellant Mosley petitioned the Tax Court for, inter alia, a declaration that a December 26, 1978 letter from the Brooklyn District Director, IRS, advising the Teamsters Fund of that fund’s failure to notify all “interested parties” as required by Treas. Regs., 26 C.F.R. § 1.7476-l(b), was invalid. The December 26, 1978 letter was the culmination of correspondence between the Teamsters Fund and the District Director with reference to a September 11, 1978 request by the Teamsters Fund for a determination that a partial termination of the Brewery Workers Fund had occurred prior to the effective date of the merger of the funds and no later than September 30,1976.
The Tax Court held that the relief sought by appellants was “patently beyond the scope of its jurisdiction.” We agree, substantially for the reasons stated by the Tax Court. The Tax Court’s jurisdiction is narrowly limited to “a case of actual controversy involving — (1) a determination by the Secretary with respect to the initial qualification or continuing qualification of a retirement plan ... or (2) a failure by the Secretary to make a determination with respect to — (A) such initial qualification, or (B) such continuing qualification if the controversy arises from a plan amendment or plan termination .... ” I.R.C. § 7476(a). Accordingly, the Tax Court is restricted to deciding “whether the Commissioner, in making his determination, properly applied the law to the facts presented to him in the request for such determination.” Thompson v. Commissioner, 71 T.C. 32, 36-37 (1978). In short, the Tax Court may only determine “whether a plan is, or is not, a qualified plan.” S.Rep. No. 383,93rd Cong., 2d Sess. 3, reprinted in 1974 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 4639, 4890, 4997. The Tax Court will not engage in de novo factual review or consider issues not raised before the Commissioner. See Jones v. Commissioner, 41 T.C.M. (CCH) ¶ 37,405 at 377 (1980), aff’d, 676 F.2d 710 (9th Cir.1982); Tamko Asphalt Products, Inc. v. Commissioner, 658 F.2d 735, 738-39 (10th Cir.1981). Nor does the Tax Court have any power under § 7476 to review claims of procedural irregularity on the part of the Commissioner in making or failing to make a “determination” with respect to the continuing qualification of a retirement plan under the Internal Revenue Code, provided statutory notice requirements have been satisfied. Hawes v. Commissioner, 73 T.C. 916 (1980).
Applying these basic jurisdictional limitations here, appellants did not present to the Tax Court an actual controversy with respect to a determination by the Commissioner regarding the continuing qualification of the retirement plans involved or a failure to make such a determination. See Tamko Asphalt Products, supra, 658 F.2d at 738. Appellants did not ask that the September 28, 1976 determination, as reaffirmed in June 1979, be reversed and that a determination be made that the merged plan be disqualified, probably because they understandably did not wish to jeopardize the tax exempt status of the Teamsters Fund. Instead appellants by letter dated September 11, 1978 requested the Commissioner to determine that there had been a “partial termination” of the Brewery Workers Fund within the meaning of § 411(d)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 and § 1.411(d)-2(b), Income Tax Regs. However, the Commissioner, because of the difference of opinion between himself and the Teamsters Fund as to whether notice of this request was required to be given to Teamsters Fund participants, never resolved this partial termination question, which is a factual issue to be “decided in the first instance by the Commissioner.” See 26 C.F.R. § 1.411(d)-2(b); Jones v. Commissioner, supra, ¶ 37,405 at 377-78; Tamko, supra, 658 F.2d at 738; Thompson v. Commissioner, supra, 71 T.C. at 37. Thus far the Commissioner has by his September 28, 1976 determination passed only “on the form of the plan” and since he thereafter requested the Teamsters Fund, in accordance with the 1978 Technical Advice Memorandum, to remedy the notice deficiency, no cognizable claim with respect to his 1976 determination has been presented to the Tax Court. Appellant Mosley’s, petition based on the Commissioner’s December 26, 1978 letter (No. 83-4011) likewise failed to present any justiciable issue relating to a determination of the qualification of a retirement plan.
Thus, in the absence of any case or controversy falling within § 7476, the Tax Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction and we are forced to affirm. However, we cannot let these appeals pass without noting the enormous delay — almost seven years since the September 28, 1976 determination — and waste of administrative and judicial resources that appear to have been attributable in large measure to a procedural morass within the Commissioner’s administrative framework. Although this delay also may have been caused in large part by the tactics of the Teamsters Fund in using these administrative procedures, no sound reason has been advanced for the Commissioner’s taking two years to issue Technical Advice (October 25,1978) to the effect that notice of the March 8, 1976 request for a determination should have been given to the Teamsters Fund.
Accordingly we urge that in the event of further proceedings the Commissioner and the parties, in the interest of avoiding further loss of public confidence and esteem, give top priority to a prompt determination of the issue of whether there was a partial termination of the Brewery Workers Fund.
The orders of the Tax Court are affirmed.

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

Choices:

Answer: 3