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:
GILCHRIST-FORDNEY CO. v. RUSSELL.
(Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
February 12, 1927.)
No. 4810.
1. Public lands <§=»157 — State held to have conveyed whatever title it had to land previous to deed to plaintiff.
A state held to have previously conveyed whatever title it had to land and a deed to plaintiff held to convey no title.
2. Public lands <S=»157 — Statute relating to “Issuance” of land patents by state held to include delivery (Hemingway’s Code, Miss. § 5282).
Under Hemingway’s Code Miss. § 5282, providing that, on an opinion of the Attorney General that land to which the state has issued a patent did not. belong to the state, the land commissioner shall cancel the patent and return the price received to the patentee “issuance” of the patent includes its delivery.
In Error to the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Mississippi; Edwin R. Holmes, Judge.
Action by S. D. Russell against the Gilchrist-Fordney Company. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant brings error.
Reversed and remanded.
Stone Deavours and Henry Hilbun, both of Laurel, Miss. (J. A. McFarland, of Bay Springs, Miss., on the brief), for plaintiff in error.
Robert L. Bullard, of Hattiesburg, Miss., for defendant in error.
Before WALKER, BRYAN, and FOSTER, Circuit Judges.
BRYAN, Circuit Judge.
This is a suit in ejectment. The title of the plaintiff, Russell, is based on a forfeited tax patent from the state of Mississippi, dated April 29, 1924, and issued because of the nonpayment of taxes for the year 1874. The defendant traced its title to the source, but also introduced in evidence a forfeited tax patent of the same land, dated October 14, 1904, to G. W. Holland, an application by Holland to cancel that patent, a letter from the land commissioner submitting that application to the Attorney General, and a letter from the latter in reply, stating that the land described in the patent did not belong to the state, an indorsement by the commissioner, dated March 15, 1906, canceling the patent, and a voucher to Holland for the purchase price. No deed or conveyance from Holland back to the state was shown. The trial court directed a verdict and entered judgment thereon for plaintiff, and defendant assigns error.
We are of opinion that the evidence is sufficient to show that the state conveyed whatever title it had to Holland in 1904, and therefore in 1924 had no title to convey to plaintiff. Whether the state’s title was valid or not is immaterial; if valid, it passéd to Holland; if invalid, plaintiff did not acquire any. It is argued on behalf of plaintiff that the judgment is correct, because the evidence fails to show delivery of the Holland patent. Hemingway’s Code, § 5282, provides that, if the state has issued or shall issue a patent for land to which it holds • no title, the land commissioner shall investigate and report to the Attorney General, and the latter, if he shall find that the land so patented did not belong to the state, shall so advise the former, who shall thereupon mark such patent canceled, and issue his voucher to the patentee for the amount received by the state.
In our opinion the issuance of the patent there referred to includes delivery, and it was not the intention of the Legislature to provide for the cancellation of patents that had merely been signed, but not delivered. If it had been discovered after signing, but before delivery, of a patent that the state had no title, the provision for cancellation would have been wholly unnecessary. The authorization to return the purchase price implies that the patentee had accepted title. The procedure prescribed by that statute was followed by the state’s officials in regard to Holland’s patent. Upon the execution of the patent in 1904 it was the duty of the land commissioner to deliver it to the patentee, and the presumption is that he performed that duty. That the purchase price had been paid is to be inferred from the fact that it was returned to the purchaser. To conclude that the patent to Holland was not delivered is to ignore the undisputed documentary evidence that it was issued. The cancellation of that patent did not have the effect of placing the title back in the state. To accomplish that, a deed from Holland was necessary (McAllister v. Mitchener, 68 Miss. 672, 9 So. 829); and none was shown.
The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded for a new trial.

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