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:
Opal M. CONKLIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JOSEPH C. HOFGESANG SAND COMPANY, INC., Defendant-Appellant.
No. 76-1685.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued Oct. 10, 1977.
Decided Nov. 18, 1977.
Ben B. Hardy, Hardy & Hardy, Louisville, Ky., for defendant-appellant.
John T. Rankin, Eubanks, Lorenz, Coombs & Rankin, Louisville, Ky., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, EDWARDS, Circuit Judge, and GRAY, Senior District Judge.
The Honorable Frank Gray, Jr., Senior Judge, United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, sitting by designation.
PER CURIAM.
This is an appeal by an employer from a judgment requiring it to pay plaintiff employee back wages, liquidated damages, and attorney’s fees pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
This action was brought in early 1974, and in July of that year defendant employer filed its answer. In its answer defendant did not plead the exemption provided for administrative employees under 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(1). The case was tried in September, 1975, still without any amendment or attempted amendment of the answer to plead the exemption. At the conclusion of the trial, the district judge allowed counsel until October 20, 1975, to file briefs. Defendant’s brief was not filed until October 30, 1975, but, in it, for the first time, it raised the question of the administrative employee exemption. The district judge made his decision by memorandum filed November 4, 1975, and, in it, held that he was precluded from reaching this question because such an exemption must be especially pleaded.
Defendant asserts that this decision by the district court was in error. We are of the opinion that this contention is without merit. See: Wirtz v. C & P Shoe Co., 336 F.2d 21 (5th Cir. 1964); Schmidtke v. Conesa, 141 F.2d 634 (1st Cir. 1944).
Some two weeks after the district court’s memorandum was filed and an interlocutory order implementing the decision had been entered, defendant moved to be allowed to amend its answer to plead the exemption. The motion was denied, and it is asserted that this was error. This argument is not well taken.
The disallowance of amendments to the pleadings is a matter within the sound discretion of the trial court, and, although the trial judge’s order denying leave to amend does not set forth the basis for that decision, such basis is apparent from the record. See: Troxel Mfg. Co. v. Schwinn Bicycle Co., 489 F.2d 968 (6th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 939, 94 S.Ct. 1942, 40 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974). The chronology of the case shows clearly the undue dilatoriness of defendant, and, as the trial judge noted in his memorandum opinion, it was clear that defendant’s attorney had failed to investigate the matter or do any legal research thereon until after the hearing. Although defendant now suggests that this issue was tried by consent and that its motion to amend was actually a motion to conform the pleadings to the evidence, examination of the record does not support this contention. Although there was some evidence of plaintiff’s duties which might have been pertinent to the issue, it is obvious that these portions of the testimony were primarily placed in the record in connection with defendant’s contentions that plaintiff had improperly handled the money of defendant and had otherwise profited from her activities in the office, such as the sale of candy, coffee, punchboard tickets, etc.
It seems pertinent to note, also, that the attorney for the defendant was also the president of the defendant corporation and that, although he testified at the trial, his testimony did not contain even a suggestion that defendant was claiming the administrative employee exemption.
Defendant raises other arguments that may be disposed of summarily. It asserts that the district court improperly applied the three-year limitation period applicable to willful violations of the FLSA, but this contention is without merit. The court cannot say, as it must if it is to reverse the trial court’s findings on this issue, that the latter’s determination is clearly erroneous. Defendant challenges the district court’s awards of liquidated damages and attorney’s fees, but this position is also unpersuasive. Such awards are within the sound discretion of the trial court and that discretion was not abused.
Although the defendant’s claims of error are held to be without merit, it appears that this case must, nevertheless, be remanded to the district court. Both parties agree that the computations made there of back wages and liquidated damages due plaintiff are unclear and may be in error. Accordingly, the case is REMANDED to the district court for such further proceedings as are not inconsistent with this opinion.

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: 1