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:
Joel YOHALEM, Petitioner, v. WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT COMMISSION, Respondent. D. C. Transit System, Inc., Intervenor.
No. 22865.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
June 13, 1969.
Mr. Douglas N. Schneider, Jr., Washington, D. C., was on the motion for respondent.
Messrs. Joel Yohalem and Morton E. Yohalem, Washington, D. C., were on the opposition to the motion for petitioner.
Mr. Harvey M. Spear, New York City, entered an appearance for intervenor.
Before Bazelon, Chief Judge, and Weight, Circuit Judge, in Chambers.
PER CURIAM:
Appeal from a decision of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Commission is conditioned on the filing of a motion for reconsideration with the Commission within 30 days of the publication of the order in question. Appellant sought to file such a motion on January 22, the thirtieth day after the issuance of an order increasing fares charged by D. C. Transit, but his agent arrived several minutes after the 4:45 P.M. closing time of the Commission’s offices. The agent thus slid the motion under the door, where it was seen roughly an hour later by a person appellant has alleged without contradiction to be the Executive Director of the Commission. The papers, however, were left on the floor that evening, and treated as if filed the next morning and hence late. Appellant asked the Commission to waive its rule limiting filing to normal office hours, but, in the belief that this would create a precedent requiring the presence of Commission employees at its office until midnight on numerous occasions, the Commission refused to waive its rule and consider on the merits the claims which appellant advanced. We hold that under the circumstances of this case, where the party seeks to raise issues of importance to the public, where the submission was only a few minutes late, and where the papers came to the attention of a responsible official of the Commission on the day tendered, even if only by accident, the Commission’s refusal to treat the application as timely is an abuse of discretion. The Commission has not yet considered appellant’s claims on their merits, and since we deem it inconsistent with the statutory pattern of review for us to consider claims that the Commission has not passed on, we remand the record to the Commission with directions to consider the application on the merits. Since this court retains jurisdiction, the provision of the Compact providing for automatic stays of orders under reconsideration shall not apply.
Our decision begins with the proposition that the statutory thirty day period does not expire until midnight of the thirtieth day, and that the time bar in this case, if any exists, must arise from the Commission regulations. The Commission has cited cases holding that where normal office hours are established by regulation, filings must be during office hours to be effective. This rule, however, is found primarily in cases concerning appeals by tax-payers, and it is not surprising that exceptions to the rule appear when cases involving the public interest arise. In Owens-Illinois Glass Co. v. District of Columbia, the District government, representing the public interest, was allowed to file a cross appeal an hour after closing on the 30th day, after informing an official of the Board of Tax Appeals by telephone of the filing. Similarly, this court has held that when a party is actually inside the office at the official closing hour, assembling his papers to seek a public hearing which would serve “important public purposes beyond the narrower interests of the protestant,” his filing must be accepted. The opinions in these cases speak to the facts involved, but we deduce from their holdings the principle that when the public interest is involved and when the filing comes to the attention of responsible officials of the agency on the day tendered, a minor failure to comply with “normal office hours” should not bar acceptance of the filing as of the day it is actually made. Since the appeal in this case challenges the recent increase in bus fares, a question of great importance to the general public, and since the application for reconsideration came to the attention of the Executive Director of the Commission, albeit fortuitously, on the day it was submitted, it should have been accepted as of January 22.
So ordered.
. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Regulation Compact, Title II, section 16.
. This closing time is prescribed by Commission Regulation.
. Cf. Dayton Power and Light Co. v. Federal Power Commission, 102 U.S.App.D.C. 164, 251 F.2d 875 (1957).
. Compact, Title II, section 16.
. Owens-Illinois Glass Co. v. District of Columbia, 92 U.S.App.D.C. 15, 204 F.2d 29 (1953).
. Hiker & Bletsch Co. v. United States, 210 F.2d 847 (7th Cir. 1954); Stebbins’ Estate v. Helvering, 74 U.S.App.D.C. 21, 121 F.2d 892 (1941); Lewis-Hall Iron Works v. Blair, 57 U.S.App.D.C. 364, 23 F.2d 972 (1928).
. 92 U.S.App.D.C. 15, 204 F.2d 29 (1953).
. Valley Broadcasting Co. v. Federal Communications Commission, 99 U.S.App.D.C. 156, 159, 237 F.2d 784, 787 (1956).

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: 0