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:
UNITED STATES v. AUTOMOBILE FINANCING, Inc.
No. 8753.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
Oct. 31, 1938.
Lawrence S. Camp, U. S. Atty., and A. Sidney Camp, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Atlanta, Ga.
Clint W. Hager and J. D. Tindall, both of Atlanta, Ga., for appellee.
Before SIBLEY, HUTCHESON, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges, '
HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge.
Proceeding under Sec. 40a Title 27 U. S.C.A. the Financing Company sought the remission from forfeiture of a Ford automobile, seized while removing and concealing nontax paid liquor, in violation of Sec. 3450, Rev.St., 26 U.S.C.A. § 1441. Its claim was, as the innocent owner and holder in good faith of purchase money notes and lien on .the car, given by one William Robert Jenkins, a person without record or reputation of violating either State or Federal liquor laws.
The United States opposed the remission on the ground that Jenkins was not the real, but only the pretended purchaser of the automobile; that the real purchaser and owner Was Robert L. McFarland, whose record and reputation as a liquor law violator was bad; and that under subdivision (b)(3) of Sec. 40a, 27 U.S.C.A., “the interest asserted by claimant arises out of”, or at . least, “is subject to, a contract or agreement under which a person having a record or reputation as a liquor -violator has a right with respect to the automobile.”
The District Judge made findings fully supported by the record; that McFarland was the real purchaser and owner; that because of his own bad reputation as a liquor violator, he had procured Jenkins to appear as ostensible purchaser; tha't the Finance Company was, however, wholly unaware of this fact and prosecuted inquiries and purchased .the notes and lien in the good faith and reasonable belief that Jenkins was the purchaser; that Jenkins had a good reputation for character and for paying his debts, and that the Finance Company had a right to and did rely upon this record and reputation. He concluded that there was no duty or obligation upon the Company to investigate the record and reputation of McFarland, the real but secret purchaser of the car, and in the exercise of the discretion he thought the statute conferred on him, he ordered the forfeiture remitted.
The United States is here insisting that, under the findings, the spirit and the purpose 'of the statute, as well as its literal terms, authorized, indeed required, the District Court to deny the remission of forfeiture. A large part of its brief is devoted to maintaining that remission is not a matter of right, and that even though all statutory “conditions precedent to remission or mitigation” are complied with, whether there shall be a remission or mitigation is still within the sound discretion of the court.
We understand this to be the law. We do not understand appellee to contend otherwise. Certainly the District Judge so understood the law. In his opinion he said; “I think this is a clear case where the Court should exercise its discretion to remit the forfeiture.”
The real controversy between appellant and appellee is over appellant’s contention; that in the case of sales of this kind, where the real purchaser with a record, procures another to appear as purchaser, the ostensible purchaser must be disregarded and the remission granted or denied upon the record and reputation of the real purchaser; and that where, as here, no inquiry was made regarding him, the statutory conditions precedent have not been complied with, and remission must be denied.
The involved* language of (b)(3) is, we think, capable of such a possible construction. Several District Courts, and one Circuit Court of Appeals, the Eighth, have so construed it. We agree, however, with the view of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that “Congress did not intend to impose upon the lienor the obligation to ascertain at his peril” the existence of secret or covered interests, “unless from the documents themselves or other surrounding circumstances the lienor possesses information which would lead a reasonably prudent and law-abiding person to make further investigation.”
The long legislative and judicial history of the struggles of those engaged in a large and legitimate industry, automobile financing, to protect themselves and their industry from the ruinous consequences of wholesale forfeitures, unreasonable and unjust as to them from the standpoint of bona fides, and the committee reports accompanying the passage of the Remission Act, all conspire to support, as the construction intended for the Act, that in the absence of circumstances putting them upon notice, persons dealing with automobile paper in due course and in good faith, may deal with it upon the faith of the ownership being as it appears upon the papers to be; and that, if they have made the prescribed inquiry as to the owners so appearing, the Court, in the exercise of a sound discretion, may remit the forfeiture as to them.
We think it plain that the discretion was soundly exercised in this case. The order of remission is affirmed.
C. I. T. Corporation v. United States, 4 Cir., 86 F.2d 311, 314; C. I. T. Corporation v. United States, 4 Cir., 89 F. 2d 977; Universal Credit Co. v. United States, 6 Cir., 91 F.2d 388; United States v. One 1935 Dodge Rack-Body Truck, 2 Cir., 88 F.2d 613; United States v. C. I. T. Corp., 2 Cir., 93 F.2d 469; United States v. One 1936 Model Ford, 4 Cir., 93 F.2d 771, affirmed 59 S. Ct. 99, 83 L.Ed. —, Oct. 17, 1938, without opinion by an equally divided court.
“If it appears that the interest asserted by the claimant arises out of or is in any way subject to any contract or agreement under which any person having a record or reputation for violating laws of the United States or of any State relating to liquor has a right with respect to such vehicle or aircraft, that,' before such claimant acquired his interest, or such other person acquired his right under such contract or agreement, whichever occurred later, the claimant, his officer or agent, was informed in answer to his inquiry, at the headquarters of the sheriff, chief of police, principal Federal internal-revenue officer engaged in the enforcement of the liquor laws, or other principal local or Federal law-enforcement officer of the locality in which such other person acquired his right under such contract or agreement. of the locality in which such other person then resided, and of each locality in which the claimant has made any other inquiry as to the character or financial standing of such other person, that such other person had no such record or reputation.”
Federal Motor Finance v. United States, 88 F.2d 90.
United States v. One 1936 Model Ford V-8, 93 F.2d 771, 773.
In United States v. One Buick Automobile, D.C., 39 F.2d 107, 108, this struggle was thus set forth: “The decisions on the point reflect quite well the impact upon the minds of the different judges of these conflicting views. Some of the judges have felt that the claims of innocent owners, and others that the claims of the government, should be given paramount protection, with the result that a matter which ought to have been settled by congressional enactment, so that an industry concerned as much with credit as the automobile industry, is, would know what to expect from the law, has been mulled over by many judges, with here a victory for strict, and there one for a liberal, construction.” See, also, Richbourg Motor Co. v. United States, 281 U.S. 528, 50 S.Ct. .385, 74 L.Ed. 1016, 73 A.L.R. 1081; C. I. T. Corporation v. United States, 4 Cir., 89 F.2d 977; United States v. One 1936 Model Ford, D.C., 19 F.Supp. 470, affirmed 4 Cir., 93 F.2d 771, 773.
Liquor Law Repeals and Enforcement Act of August 27, 1935, 27 U.S. C.A. Sec. 48 — 49 Stat. 872; United States v. One 1936 Model Ford, supra.

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

Choices:

Answer: 0