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:
MECHLIN et al. v. LEA et al. In re OLD FORT IMPROVEMENT CO.
No. 4363.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Oct. 7, 1938.
R. C. Horne, Jr., of Washington, D. C. (L. E. Purdy, of Sumter, S. C., and Ernest F. Mechlin, of Washington, D. C, on the brief) for appellants.
W. Brantley Harvey, of Beaufort, S. C., for appellees.
Before NORTHCOTT and SOPER, Circuit Judges, and WAY, District Judge.
PER CURIAM.
A second unsuccessful attempt was made in this case to secure the approval of the District Court to a plan of reorganization of the Old Fort Improvement Company under Section 77B of the Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C.A. § 207. Substantially the same plan as that in the present case was presented to the District Court in Old Fort Improvement Company v. Lea, 4 Cir., 89 F.2d 286, in which the petition was filed in the name of the corporation but was dismissed, erroneously as we thought, on the ground that, the charter of the corporation having been cancelled by the Secretary of State of South Carolina, the petitioner was not such a corporate entity as was entitled to file a petition for reorganization under Section 77B.
The case was remanded to the District Court for further proceedings wherein the court again dismissed the petition on the ground that the plan was speculative and of no real benefit to the corporation, its shareholders or creditors. The case then came .to this court a second time (4 Cir., 92 F.2d 442) on a petition filed in the name of the corporation for leave to appeal on the ground that the action of the court in dismissing the petition was contrary to our mandate on the first appeal. We concluded, however, that the application for appeal was without merit.
Thereafter, the pending case was instituted by a petition filed by three persons alleging that they were creditors of the corporation and had provable claims amounting in the aggregate to more than $1,000, and resubmitting the plan of reorganization. An answer, purporting to be filed by former, officers of the corporation, admit- . ted the allegations of the petition, and prayed that the court proceed to reorganize the corporation. On the other hand, stockholders claiming the ownership of fifty per cent of the corporate stock of the corporation, intervened in the proceeding, with the consent of the court, denied that the petitioners were creditors of the corporation, asserted the solvency of the corporation and resisted the plan of reorganization. The case was duly set for hearing but none of the petitioning creditors appeared and no testimony was offered to support the allegations of the petition other than affidavit sworn and subscribed to by two persons purporting to be former officers of the corporation, who did not take the stand or submit to examination under oath. The District Court reached the conclusion that the petitioners had no standing as creditors to file the petition for reorganization and that the plan of reorganization was without merit, and therefore passed an order disapproving the plan and dismissing the petition.
We find no error in this order. The status of the petitioners as creditors of the corporation was challenged by the answer of the intervening stockholders and the petitioners offered no proof which the court was obliged to recognize to sustain their allegations. Moreover, there is noth-, ing in the record before us to indicate that the District Judge wrongfully disapproved the plan of reorganization.
The order of the District Court is therefore affirmed.

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