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.
Your specific task is to determine the total number of appellants in the case. 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:
Jeffrey T. BEAL, a Minor, by His Parents and Guardians, Robert T. Beal and Jessie Beal, and Robert T. Beal and Jessie Beal in Their Own Right, Petitioners, v. Joseph SCHUL, Respondent, Honorable Ralph C. BODY, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Nominal Respondent.
No. 16784.
United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.
Submitted on Petition for Writ of Mandamus Aug. 17, 1967.
Decided Oct. 3, 1967.
Rehearing Denied Nov. 20, 1967.
Stephen M. Feldman, Feldman & Feldman, Philadelphia, Pa., for petitioners.
Hugh M. Odza, Wissow & Odza, Philadelphia, Pa., for respondent.
Before KALODNER and SEITZ, Circuit Judges, and COHEN, District Judge.
OPINION OF THE COURT
PER CURIAM:
Upon consideration of the petition for a writ of mandamus to the Honorable-Ralph C. Body, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Nominal Respondent, in the above entitled ease, it is ordered that plaintiffs’ petition for a writ of mandamus be and it hereby is denied.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 3