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:
HOPKINS v. TEXAS CO.
No. 584.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.
Jan. 9, 1933.
Charles E. MePherren, of Oklahoma City, Okl. (S. P. Render and Neal E. Maurer, both of Oklahoma City, Okl., on the brief), for appellant.
B. W. Griffith, of Tulsa, Okl., and C. B. Coehran, of Oklahoma City, Okl. (John R. Ramsey, of Tulsa, Okl., Y. A. Land, of Denver, Colo.,' Harry T. Klein, of New York City, and Ame¡?, Cochran, Ames & Monnel, of Oklahoma City, Okl., on the brief), for appellee.
Before LEWIS, COTTERAL, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.
Rehearing denied February 10, 1933.
COTTERAL, Circuit Judge.
This suit was brought by appellant, Hopkins, as lessor under three leases dated respectively April 4, 1925, December 7, 1925, and December 16, 1919, against appellee, a successor lessee, to obtain an accounting for gasoline and residue gas, manufactured and extracted as by-products from casinghead gas. The answer was that the defendant had fully accounted by rendering up the oil and gas stipulated for in the leases, except the sum of $81.23, which was tendered into court. The defense was sustained and the bill was dismissed.
An objection to the consideration of the ease on the merits was that the appellant has not assigned sufficient specifications of error; but we think the objection is not well taken. An appeal in an equity suit brings the case up do novo and in order to avoid injustice a plain error, even though not assigned, should be considered. Central Improvement Co. v. Cambria Steel Co. (C. C. A.) 201 F. 811; National Acc. Society v. Spiro (C. C. A.) 78 F. 774.
The leases are not essentially different. They each bind the lessee to deliver to the lessor one-eighth of the oil produced and saved from the premises, and pay annually oner eighth of the gas proceeds, or $200, where gas only is found and is used off the premises, and have free gas for domestic use, or one-eighth of the gas if used to manufacture gasoline or any other by-product. The third subdivisions obligate the lessee to account for one-eighth of the gas from an oil well, when used off the premises or in the manufacture of gasoline or any other product, and when used for the manufacture of gasoline.
All the wells were oil wells. The controversy is whether,' as appellant contends, casinghead gas should be separated into its constituent parts, and royalties paid on gasoline and other products produced from it, as oil royalty, under the first subdivisions of the leases, and the residue of gas paid for as gas under the third subdivisions of the leases; or, as appellee insists, the lessee was bound only under the third subdivisions to render but one-eighth of the casinghead gas and not its constituent elements of gasoline and gas, when separated through a casing-head plant in a manufacturing p'rocess.
It is our opinion that gas from an oil well must be regarded as including casinghead gas, the value of which is ascertained at the mouths of the wells. The decisions of the state Supreme Court of Oklahoma, which are determinative of the question, are to the effect that casinghead gas is gas and not oil, regardless of the products obtained from it. Mussellem v. Magnolia Pet. Co., 107 Okl. 183, 231 P. 526; Pautler v. Franchot, 108 Okl. 130, 235 P. 209; Wilson v. King Smith Ref. Co., 119 Okl. 256, 250 P. 90. With respect to gas, the rendition of the stipulated share of the casinghead gas was a fulfillment of the obligations of the leases. Those obligations were satisfied.
Settlement was made for the casing-head gas, in accordance with the departmental schedule, which was followed by common practice and custom in ,the. Mid-Cpntinent field, where the land was located. That method of settlement is well sustained and should be accepted. It left appellant without any right of recovery.
It is urged that the appellee used the vacuum method in order to produce an excess of oil and this furnishes an additional reason for ascertaining royalties based on the constituent elements of casinghead gas. We do not find any evidence of the use of that method, but in any event it is recognized as properly employed in producing oil and gas.
The position of appellee is strengthened on the theory that for a long period, while the leases were operated, the lessor accepted the specified portion of the casinghead gas without asserting any claim to the products composing it. This mutual interpretation of the lease contracts affords cogent evidence of their meaning. Mussellem v. Magnolia Pet. Co., supra; Pautler v. Franchot, supra; New York Life Ins. Co. v. Tolbert (C. C. A.) 55 F.(2d) 10.
We regard the decision of the District Court as right in all respeets, and it 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: 1