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:
William J. GOODSON, Petitioner, v. RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD, Respondent.
No. 78-1074.
United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued Jan. 15, 1979.
Decided March 16, 1979.
Alan Wasserman, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, for petitioner.
Arthur A. Arfa, Gen. Atty., Railroad Retirement Bd. with whom Dale G. Zimmerman, Gen. Counsel, and Edward S. Hintzke, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Railroad Retirement Bd., Chicago, Ill., were on brief, for respondent.
Before LEVENTHAL and MacKINNON, Circuit Judges and 0BERD0RFER , United States District Court Judge for the District of Columbia.
Sitting by designation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 292(a).
PER CURIAM:
This case comes before the court on appeal from a decision of the Railroad Retirement Board. We remand this case for further proceedings.
Appellant, a former laborer for the Union Pacific Railroad, is currently receiving an annuity under section 2(a)4 of the Railroad Retirement Act, 45 U.S.C. § 228b(a)4. In order to receive this annuity, appellant had to demonstrate that medical factors precluded continued performance of his regular occupation.
The issue is whether appellant is also entitled to a determination of a “period of disability” under section 3(e) of the Act, 45 U.S.C. § 228c(e), which would increase his benefits. To qualify for these higher benefits, a claimant must demonstrate an “inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity.” The Board held that appellant failed to meet this standard.
Appellant suffers from a spinal condition that causes severe back and neck pain. To alleviate this pain, appellant must be placed in traction at least twice a day. The Board acknowledged that appellant’s condition was painful, but stated that the pain was not so severe as to render appellant totally disabled. In reaching this decision, the Board relied on the testimony of several physicians, and stressed the diagnosis of appellant’s personal physician, Dr. Shanks. The doctors concluded that appellant could perform sedentary work not requiring extensive bending from the neck, and on that basis the Board concluded that appellant was capable of performing substantial gainful employment.
Appellant's counsel has moved to supplement the record to introduce a letter from Dr. Shanks indicating that his conclusion that appellant was capable of performing sedentary work was premised on appellant’s continued use of the traction therapy. If appellant must be placed in traction several times a day, he clearly cannot work on a full time basis. “Ability to work only a few hours a day or to work on an intermittent basis is not ability to engage in a ‘substantial gainful activity’ . . .” Rivas v. Weinberger, 475 F.2d 255, 258 (5th Cir. 1973). This is not to say that the Board must demonstrate that a claimant is capable of working an eight hour day, for under certain circumstances part time employment may constitute substantial gainful activity, e. g., Wesley v. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, 385 F.Supp. 863, 866 (D.C.D.C. 1974). But the Board must demonstrate that a claimant can engage in “(substantial services with reasonable regularity in some competitive employment .” Rivas v. Weinberger, supra, 475 F.2d at 258.
The court recognizes that the Board need not demonstrate the existence of particular jobs for which appellant would actually be hired, Meneses v. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, 143 U.S. App.D.C. 81, 84, 442 F.2d 803, 806 (1971). But once appellant demonstrated that he was unable to continue in his former occupation, the Board had the burden of showing the existence of work in the national economy for a person of appellant’s age, education, work experience and physical disabilities, id. In appellant’s case part of his physical disability is the need to undergo traction several times a day. The Board must ascertain whether there is gainful activity available for a person of appellant’s age and skill (or lack of it) who requires traction to the extent appellant requires it.
On the record before us, two matters are unclear. First, we are unable to determine whether the Board considered the continued need for the traction treatment in determining that appellant’s pain did not preclude the performance of substantial gainful employment. Second, assuming the Board did consider the use of the traction in evaluating appellant’s pain level, it is unclear whether the Board’s decision that appellant was capable of engaging in substantial activity rested on a showing of the availability of part time employment.
The Board's opinion requires clarification. On further consideration, it has the latitude to decide that the supplement to the record warrants a change in result. The Board’s order is vacated and the case remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with the foregoing.
. At oral argument it was stated that if appellant qualified for the increased benefits he would receive an additional $200 a month. Appellant would also receive a lump sum payment of approximately $10,400 for back benefits due through December 31, 1978. In addition, by paying an eight dollar monthly premium, appellant would receive Medicare benefits even though he is under sixty-five.
. Section 3(e) of the Railroad Retirement Act incorporates the definition of disability found in section 216 of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 416. It is in section 216 of the Social Security Act that the “inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity” language can be found. Because of the reliance on the Social Security Act’s definition of disability, many courts have relied on Social Security precedents in reviewing Railroad Retirement Act cases, e. g., Goodwin v. Railroad Retirement Board, 546 F.2d 1169, 1172 (5th Cir. 1977), and we shall do so here.
. The motion is hereby granted. We note that appellant was not represented by counsel before the Board. The Board’s counsel opposed the motion on the ground that the Board might reasonably find “that the traction could be applied before and after working hours.” However, the Board did not focus on that point in its decision, and in our view granting the motion would be in the interest of justice.
. See note 3, 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: 1