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:
MANUFACTURER’S NATIONAL BANK OF DETROIT, Personal Representative of the Estate of Patrick Murray, M.D., Deceased; Carol Murray, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of Colette Murray, Deceased; Loretta Murray, Individually, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. ERIE COUNTY ROAD COMMISSION, et al., Defendants, Huron Township, Huron Township Board of Trustees, and Robert Boos, Jointly and Severally, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 90-3843.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued May 3, 1991.
Decided April 27, 1992.
Michelle A. Thomas (argued), Richard A. Bone, and Sheri B. Cataldo (briefed), Sullivan, Ward, Bone, Tyler, Fiott & Asher, Southfield, Mich., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Willis P. Jones, Jr., Sarah A. McHugh (argued and briefed), Jones & Bahret, Toledo, Ohio, and Randal L. Strickler, Prosecutor’s Office for the County of Erie, San-dusky, Ohio, for defendants-appellees.
Before: KENNEDY and SUHRHEINRICH, Circuit Judges; and LIVELY, Senior Circuit Judge.
ORDER
Plaintiffs’ personal representative of the Estate of Patrick Murray, M.D. and Colette Murray, Deceased; Carol Murray and Loretta Murray appealed the summary judgment for defendants Huron Township, Huron Township Board of Trustees and Robert Boos in this action. Because undecided questions of state law governed the outcome of the case, those questions were certified to the Ohio Supreme Court pursuant to Rule XVI of the Ohio Supreme Court Rules of Practice. That Court has now answered those questions in a manner inconsistent with the decision and judgment of the District Court. The judgment of the District Court is therefore REVERSED and the action REMANDED to the District Court for further proceedings in accordance with the holding of the Ohio Supreme Court in answer to the certified questions.
The Court is deeply appreciative that the State of Ohio provides this certification procedure. The Ohio Supreme Court’s entry is attached as Exhibit A and the court’s opinion was decided on April 1, 1992. 63 Ohio St.3d 318, 587 N.E.2d 819 (1992).
EXHIBIT A
THE SUPREME COURT OF OHIO
1992 TERM
To wit: April 1, 1992
Manufacturer’s National Bank of Detroit, etc., et al.,
Petitioners,
v.
Erie County Road Commission et al.;
Huron Township et al., Respondents.
Case No. 91-1302
ENTRY
This cause is pending before the Court on the certification of state law questions by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. For the reasons stated in the opinion rendered herein, the Court answers the first certified question and finds that a permanent obstruction to visibility in the right-of-way, which renders the regularly travelled portions of the highway unsafe for the usual and ordinary course of travel, can be a nuisance for which a political subdivision may be liable under R.C. 2744.-02(B)(3). For the reasons stated in the opinion rendered herein, the Court answers the second certified question and finds that where the abutting landowner or occupier uses the highway right-of-way in a manner inconsistent with a highway purpose, and where such usage constitutes an unreasonable hazard to the users of the highway, the landowner or occupier may be liable for damages proximately caused by the improper use of the right-of-way.
THOMAS J. MOYER
Chief Justice

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