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:
McNABB v. VIRGINIAN RY. CO.
No. 3226.
■ Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Jan. 12, 1932.
Affirmed.
A. A. Lilly, of Charleston, W. Va. (Lilly, Lilly & Warwick and It. G. Lilly, all of Charleston, W. Va., on the brief), for appellant.
John R. Pendleton, of Princeton, W. Va. (Harry C. Ellett, of Princeton, W. Va., on the brief), for appellee.
Before PARKER, NORTHCOTT and SOPER, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Willie McNabb, appellant, brought this action of trespass on the ease against the Virginian Railway Company, a corporation, appellee, and against H. Clay Jacobs and R. C. Lambert, in the circuit court of Payette county, W. Va. The cause was subsequently removed to the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of West Virginia) and the defendants H. Clay Jacobs and R. C. Lambert were dismissed as defendants, and, the defendant, Virginian Railway Company, having pleaded not guilty, the issue was tried before a jury in May, 1931.
After the conclusion of the evidence for both the plaintiff and the defendant, the court, upon motion of the defendant, directed the jury to find for the defendant, which was accordingly done. The plaintiff moved to set aside the verdict of the jury, and to grant him a new'trial, which motion the court overruled. Prom that judgment this appeal is taken.
The appellant, who was plaintiff below, was struck by a locomotive of the railway company at a road crossing near Deep-water, Payette county, W. Va. There is evidence on behalf of the railway company that the headlight was burning on the locomotive and that the crossing signals were duly given. Plaintiff and a witness testified that the light was not burning. Assuming, that the evidence was sufficient do carry the ease to the jury on the issue of negligence, we think that plaintiff was unquestionably barred of recovery by his contributory negligence and that verdict was properly directed against him. We think it clear in the light of the evidence that, if plaintiff had looked before stepping in front of the approaching locomotive, he could unquestionably have seen it in timé to have avoided being struck, and his injury is therefore to be attributed to his own negligence in stepping in front of the locomotive without taking' proper precautions. A number of witnesseá on both sides) who had no better view than the plaintiff; testified that they saw the approaching locomotive. In view of the physical conditions disclosed by the other evidence, his testimony that he looked but failed to see>-the locomotive approaching is without probative force and entirely insufficient to form the basis of a verdict in his behalf.
Had the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, it would have been the duty of the trial judge in the exercise of a sound judicial discretion to set it aside. It was therefore proper for him to direct a verdict for the defendant. South Carolina Asparagus Growers’ Association v. Southern Railway Co. (C. C. A.) 46 F.(2d) 452, 453, and cases there cited; Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Ry. Co. v. Coogan, 271 U. S. 472, 46 S. Ct. 564, 70 L. Ed. 1041; Hetzel v. Kemper, 102 W. Va. 567, 135 S. E. 667.
This rule applies not only in cases where the evidence is undisputed, but also in eases where the evidence is só conclusive in character that reasonable men would not reach different conclusions in regard thereto. In Ellerson v. Grove, 44 F.(2d) 493, 496, this court holds as follows:
“The general rule as to direction of verdicts is set out in the case of Marion County Commissioners v. Clark, 94 U. S. 284, 24 L. Ed. 59, as follows: ‘Decided cases may be found where it is held that, if there is a scintilla, of evidence in support of a ease, the judge is bound to leave it to the jury; but the modern decisions have established a more reasonable rule; to wit, that, before the evidence is left to the jury, there is or may be in every ease a preliminary question for the judge, not whether there is literally no evidence, but whether there is any upon which a jury can properly proceed to find a verdict for the party producing it, upon whom the burden of proof is imposed.’ * * *
“See also Coughran v. Bigelow, 164 U. S. 307, 17 S. Ct. 117, 41 L. Ed. 442; Patton v. Southern Ry. Co. (C. C. A.) Ill P. 712; Woodward et al. v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. (C. C. A.) 145 P. 577. In the last-mentioned ease it is said that it is the duty of a court to direct a verdict at the close of the evidence in two classes of cases: (1) That class in which the evidence is' undisputed; and (2) that class in which the evidence is conflicting but is of so conclusive a character that the court in the exercise of a sound judicial discretion will set aside the verdict in opposition to it. See also numerous cases cited in that opinion.”
The judgment of the court below-is accordingly 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: 0