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:
SHOOTERS ISLAND, SHIPYARD CO. v. STANDARD SHIPBUILDING CORPORATION et al. UNITED STATES v. SAME (two cases).
(Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
February 27, 1925.)
No. 3027.
1. Action <§=>56 — Consolidation of actions is ordinarily within trial court’s discretion.
Consolidation of actions is ordinarily within trial court’s discretion, and cannot be demanded as matter of right, except, perhaps, on showing of positive injury or denial of definite right.
2. Action <§==357 (I) — Mortgagee held not entitled to consolidation of its foreclosure action with action by United States asserting prior Hen.
Mortgagee, suing shipyard company to foreclose mortgage, held not entitled to consolidate its action with action by United States asserting prior mortgage and tax liens.
3. Action <®=58 — Motion to consolidate actions must be timely, and usually before trial.
Motion to consolidate actions must be timely, and must usually be made before trial of either action is commenced.
Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey; Joseph L. Bodine, District Judge.
Separate suits by the Shooters Island Shipyard Company and by the United States against the Standard Shipbuilding Corporation and others. From an order denying its motion to consolidate the suits, the Shooters Island Shipyard Company appeals.
Affirmed.
William St. John Tozer and White & Case, all of New York City (Jeremiah M. Evarts and Joseph M. Hartfield, both of New York City, of counsel), for appellant.
Walter G. Winne, U. S. Atty., of Hackensack, N. J. (Chauncey G. Parker and John M. Emery, both of Newark, N. J., of counsel), for appellees.
Before BUFFINGTON, WOOLLEY, and DAY1S, Circuit Judges.
WOOLLEY, Circuit Judge.
This appeal grows out of matters reviewed in two opinions by this court, one filed this day and the other reported in 293 'F. 706. Several suits instituted in the District Court are involved. The first was brought on a general creditors’ bill against the Standard Shipbuilding Corporation; the next by Shooters Island Shipyard Company (with leave of the court) to foreclose a purchase money mortgage and supplementary mortgage against the same defendant. The United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation was. named as a parly and, on appearing, filed an answer and cross-bill. It sought by-its cross-bill to foreclose a mortgage which it held against the Standard Shipbuilding Corporation, asserting priority of lien. Thereafter the United States of America brought suit against the same corporation claiming, by force of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1920, §§ 814614-814:61/4$), ownership of the bond and mortgage held by the United States Shipping Board. At about the same time it also brought an action against the Standard Shipbuilding Corporation for taxes. All these suits were in equity.
The action brought by Shooters Island Shipyard Company to foreclose a mortgage against the Standard Shipbuilding Corporation was consolidated with the action brought on the general creditors’ bill against the same defendant. Later, the Shooters Island Shipyard Company moved to consolidate these suits with those instituted by the United States. From an order of the court denying the motion this appeal was taken and is based on the contention that, though ordinarily consolidation of suits is a matter for the discretion of the court, it was in this instance the duty of the court to consolidate them, and that in consequence the court’s refusal was an abuse of its discretion.
The appellant seems to rest its ■ case on a decision by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Providence Engineering Corporation v. Downey Shipbuilding Corporation, 294 F. 641, which had not been decided at the time the court refused the motion for consolidation in the case at bar...We understand the questions raised and decided in that case but we are not able to see how they touch the matter of the exercise of judicial discretion in granting or refusing a motion to consolidate actions. In further support of its position, the appellant refers to the action by the District Court for the Eastern District of New York in consolidating suits by the same parties to foreclose the same mortgages against property in New York.
The consolidation of actions is ordinarily within- thie discretion of'the trial court. Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Hillmon, 145 U. S. 285, 292, 12 S. Ct. 909, 36 L. Ed. 706. It is done to expedite the hearing and diminish the expense of separate suits involving the same issues. Toledo, etc., R. R. Co. v. Continental Trust Co., 95 F. 497, 36 C. C. A. 155. It cannot be demanded by any of the parties as matter of right except perhaps on a showing that otherwise some positive injury would occur or some definite right would be denied. We do not think that the cloud on its title, which the appellant sees in the distance; is of this character. Moreover, an application to consolidate actions must ordinarily be made before the trial of either one is commenced. 1 Corpus Juris, 1134. Certainly the motion must always be timely.. In this instance it was not made by the appellant until after the hearing in its own suit was well under way. Assuming without deciding that under some circumstances an order denying the consolidation of suits is one of such finality as to give this court jurisdiction on appeal, we cannot say that the learned trial court abused its discretion in making the order in question. Therefore it is 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: 1