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:
Louise M. BLAIR, Appellant, v. INTER-OCEAN INSURANCE COMPANY.
No. 77-1657.
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued March 31, 1978.
Decided Dec. 22, 1978.
Eugene J. Fitzpatrick, Rockville, Md., with whom Melvin M. Feldman, Rockville, Md., was on the brief, for appellant.
Roger E. Warin, Washington, D. C., for appellee.
Before LUMBARD, Senior Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit, and MacKINNON and WILKEY, Circuit Judges.
Sitting by designation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 294(d).
Opinion for the court PER CURIAM.
PER CURIAM:
Appellant, Louise M. Blair, brought an action based on diversity jurisdiction to recover the $40,000 proceeds of a life insurance policy issued to her deceased husband four months before his death of portal cirrhosis of the liver, and for consequential damages flowing from appellee’s, Inter-Ocean Insurance Co., refusal to pay the policy. Inter-Ocean was granted summary judgment on the grounds that appellee was excused from paying off its policy because the deceased both at the time of his application for insurance and thereafter before the policy was actually issued, had, as a matter of law, materially misstated his medical history in respects that materially affected the acceptance of the risk and the hazard assumed by the insurer. We find no error in the district court’s ruling and affirm its judgment.
As part of his application for insurance, the deceased, Daniel R. Blair, was required to provide information requested on a company medical form, “Answer Made to the Medical Examiner.” In his answers to this questionnaire, Mr. Blair disclosed that he had a history of diabetes, but when specifically asked whether or not he had ever had or consulted a physician concerning any “Stomach or Intestinal Trouble, Indigestion, Ulcers, Appendicitis, Gall Bladder or Liver Disorder, Jaundice, Dysentery or Hernia,” (emphasis added) he replied with an unqualified “no.” In fact, shortly before he gave that answer the deceased had been hospitalized for some six days during which he had been diagnosed as suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. In addition to concealing this diagnosis from appellee, in response to an inquiry on the medical form asking for the full details of any hospitalization during the past five years, Mr. Blair neglected to mention this confinement, although it had occurred only four months before he applied for insurance. Furthermore, during the period between the deceased’s application in March, 1974, and the issuance of the policy in June, 1974, Mr. Blair again required hospitalization for his cirrhotic liver, which at this point was producing symptoms — bleeding esophageal varices — suggestive of a rapidly deteriorating condition. Although the terms of his insurance required the applicant to inform Inter-Ocean of any hospitalization subsequent to the submission of his application for insurance and prior to its issuance, Mr. Blair did not inform Inter-Ocean of this hospitalization.
The appellant does not dispute these facts, but instead contends that since the deceased did disclose his diabetic condition, and his physician in answering a Special Diabetes Questionnaire commented that the deceased had developed “peripheral neuritis” and characterized the risk of insuring Mr. Blair as “moderately severe,” the insurance company was put on notice of the possibility of liver disease. Given such notice, appellant further contends that Inter-Ocean should in the exercise of due diligence have discovered deceased’s true medical condition; and that since appellee issued the disputed policy despite notice of “facts of such a nature as to require further inquiry by insurer” (Appellant’s Brief at 8), it allegedly is estopped from denying the validity of the insurance.
One need only examine the responses given by deceased’s doctor to the Special Diabetes Questionnaire to appreciate the frivolous nature of the claim that knowledge of Mr. Blair’s diabetes and peripheral neuritis should have led the appellee to inquire into the possibility of liver disease. Nowhere on this form, including the final section requesting general “Remarks,” is there any hint that deceased was suffering from cirrhosis.
Liver disease may well be, as appellant contends, a possible result of diabetes (although Mr. Blair’s own physician who had treated diabetics all his professional life had apparently never seen a case where the latter disease led to the former), but it can hardly be said that Inter-Ocean — having received deceased’s sworn statement disclaiming any liver disorder and two medical reports neither of which referred to any disease related to that organ — was put on a duty of inquiry into the condition of Mr. Blair’s liver. Numerous cases in which the information given to an insurance company was far more suggestive of serious illness than that which the deceased chose to divulge to Inter-Ocean have found that the insurer was not on a duty of investigation as to the possibility of such illness, e. g., Rutherford v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., 562 F.2d 290 (4th Cir. 1977); Fleet Messenger Service v. Life Insurance Company of North America, 315 F.2d 593 (2d Cir. 1963) (per Lumbard, C. J.); Haub-ner v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 256 A.2d 414 (D.C.App.1969). We see absolutely no basis for imposing such a duty on appellee in this case.
The district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the appellee was entirely proper, regardless of whether or not the intent with which decedent made the misrepresentations was an issue upon which testimony should have been taken, because, even if unintentional, these misrepresentations without doubt materially affected the hazard assumed by the company and its decision to accept the risk of insuring Mr. Blair. Under both District of Columbia and Maryland law, such a material misrepresentation is grounds for abrogating the policy of insurance, D.C.Code § 35-414 (1973); Md.Code Ann. Art. 48A, § 374 (1972), and Inter-Ocean’s underwriting manual explicitly states that it will not write life insurance of any kind for individuals suffering from active cirrhosis of the liver. Whether or not Mr. Blair’s cirrhosis was “passive” at the time he applied for insurance, it certainly gave signs of being “active” when he was rushed to the hospital for treatment three weeks before the issuance of the policy. Given the directives of appellee’s underwriting manual, it is clear that had deceased not misrepresented the condition of his health, no policy would have been issued to him. We accordingly affirm the grant of summary judgment for Inter-Ocean.
Affirmed.
. Peripheral neuritis is defined as “inflammation of the nerve endings or terminal nerves,” Dorland’s Medical Dictionary 1039 (25th ed. 1974), which can lead to loss of reflex and some loss of weight, but certainly could not be considered a threat to life itself.
. Decedent’s cirrhosis was not in fact caused by diabetes but by excessive consumption of alcohol.
. D.C.Code § 35-414 provides:
The falsity of a statement in the application for any policy of insurance shall not bar the right to recovery thereunder unless such false statement was made with intent to deceive or unless it materially affected either the acceptance of the risk or the hazard assumed by the company.
See Jones v. Prudential Insurance Co., 388 A.2d 476 (D.C.App.1978) (insured falsely stated that she was not a heroin addict; held that this misrepresentation precluded recovery on the policy under § 35-414 because “the misrepresentation would affect the company’s acceptance of the risk . . ..”) Cf. Taylor v. Time Insurance Co., 583 F.2d 743 (5th Cir. 1978).
. Md.Code Ann. Art. 48A, § 374 provides:
All statements and descriptions in any application for a life or health insurance policy or annuity contract, or for the reinstatement or renewal thereof, by or in behalf of the insured or annuitant, shall be deemed to be representations and not warranties.. Misrepresentations, omissions, concealment of facts, and incorrect statements shall not prevent a recovery under such policy or contract unless either:
(1) Fraudulent; or
(2) Material either to the acceptance or the risk, or to the hazard assumed by the insurer; or
(3) The insurer in good faith would either not have issued, reinstated, or renewed the policy or contract, or would not have issued a policy or contract in as large an amount, or would not have provided coverage with respect to the hazard resulting in the loss, if the true facts had been known to the insurer as required either by the application for the policy or contract or otherwise.
We have considered the applicable statutes in both states to avoid any dispute regarding which law governs.
. The second hospitalization in Intensive Care occurred on May 13th and the policy was issued on June 1st.

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