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:
NATIONAL BELLAS HESS, Inc. v. KALIS.
No. 14388.
United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.
Oct. 9, 1951.
John W. Oliver, Kansas City, Mo. (Stanley Garrity and Scott R. Timmons, Kansas City, Mo., were with him on the brief), for appellant.
Isadore Rich, Kansas City, Mo. (Myer M. Rich and Rich & Rich, Kansas City, Mo., were with him on the brief), for appellee.
Before SANBORN, THOMAS, and COLLET, Circuit Judges.
SANBORN, Circuit Judge.
This appeal challenges a judgment of the District Court based upon its conclusion that a lease of real estate in Kansas City, Missouri, “for a term commencing October 1, 1943, and ending sixty (60) days after the signing of the treaty of peace upon the close of the war with Germany and/or with Japan, whichever treaty of peace is the latest * * did not, under Missouri law, create a valid tenancy for years, and that the tenancy after October 1, 1944, the date to which rent was payable and had been paid in advance, was a tenancy at will.
The action was brought on July 11, 1950, by the owner of the premises (appellee) for a declaratory judgment that the lease was invalid. The tenant (appellant) asserted in its answer that the lease was valid and created a tenancy for years. Jurisdiction was based upon diversity of citizenship, amount involved, and the existence of a justiciable controversy.
The District Court determined that since October 1, 1944, the duration of the term of the lease has been uncertain as a matter of law, and’that, for that reason, the lease has been invalid, null and void since that-date. Judgment' waá entered accordingly and the tenant was declared to be occupying the leased premises as a tenant at will. This appeal followed.
Obviously, the lease in suit by its terms was from the beginning, and is'now, of uncertain duration; but the tenant contends that the event which marks the termination of the lease is one which is sometime certain to occur and that the fact that no one can foretell when it will occur does not invalidate the lease, since the ultimate happening of the event will make certain that which was previously uncertain.
The District Court concluded that “The signing of the Treaties of Peace provided for in the lease in issue is not such an event as, under the law, is certain to occur.” We shall assume, however, for the purposes of this opinion, that it is a certainty that treaties of peace with both Japan and Germany will ultimately be signed.
It is conceded that no case involving the validity of a lease such as that in suit has been decided by a Missouri court. No statute of that State is involved. Apparently, the Supreme Court of ■ Missouri has followed the old common law rule that, in order to create a valid tenancy for years, the duration of the term must be specified with certainty in the lease or at least be ascertainable from its provisions, and that an event certain to occur but uncertain as to the time of its occurrence, such as death, may not be used to mark the termination of the term.
The leading case in Missouri. on' the subject is Idalia Realty & Development Co. v. Norman, 232 Mo. 663, 135 S.W. 47, 48, 34 L.R.A.,N.S., 1069. It involved a lease of lands which provided that it was to run “until mill is removed.” The Supreme Court of Missouri ruled, in substance, that the lease did not create a tenancy for years, because it violated the common law rule requiring that a definite term be fixed. As we read the decision, it is authority for the rule that a lease providing for an uncertain period of duration is not a lease for years.
This view is borne out by State ex rel. Rumbold v. Gordon, 238 Mo. 168, 142 S.W. 315, 316, 317, Ann.Cas.1913A, 312, in which the Supreme Court of Missouri, in considering the meaning of the word “term”, said: “ * * * The word ‘term’ is of common use in conveyancing. A lease for years is a term, and, before an estate for years can be a term, it must have a certain beginning and a certain ending, its duration must ‘be measured by fixed periods, as by years, months, weeks,’ etc. 2 Preston on Conveyancing, p. 158. Again (Id. 159 et seq.) : ‘When it is said * * * in the language of Lord Coke, “regularly in every lease for years, the term must have a certain beginning and a certain end,” this is to be understood in its legal and technical sense. The only circumstance required in limitations for terms is that a precise time shall be fixed for the continuance of the terms; so that, when the commencement of the'term is ascertained, the period of determination, by effluxion of time, may be known with certainty.’ Idalia Co. v. Norman, 232 Mo. loc. cit. 671 et seq., 135 S.W. 49, 34 L.R.A.,N.S., 1069. So, agreeably to the same end, it is good doctrine that the maxim, that is certain which can be made certain (‘Id certum est,’ etc.), is applied 'in resolving any doubt on whether a ‘term’ is granted. Thus, if the beginning is certain, and if the end can be made certain by reference to some mentioned certainty, a term is granted. By the same token a lease without a ‘term’ creates a tenancy at will, unless by reservation of annual rent it may be construed on equitable principles as a lease from year to year. See Idalia Case, supra.”
The appellate Court of Illinois, First District, in Stanmeyer v. Davis, 321 Ill.App. 227, 53 N.E.2d 22, 24, which involved a lease bearing some analogy to the lease in the instant case, after 'citing the Idalia case and other cases, stated: “ * * * It is not the certainty of the happening of the event [which is to end the term] but the certainty of the date on which the termination of the lease will take place that is the determinative factor.”
American Jurisprudence, under Landlord and Tenant, Volume 32, § 62, page 77, cites the Idalia case in support of the statement that, “It is a cardinal principle in the creation of terms for years that the term must be certain, that is, there must be certainty as to the commencement and duration.”
It is, to say the least, a permissible conclusion that, under the law of Missouri, a lease which is to end upon the happening of an event certain to occur but uncertain as to the time when it will occur, does not create a valid tenancy for years.
This Court has repeatedly ruled that it will accept the considered views of a District Judge as to doubtful questions of local law. Many of the cases in this Court and the Supreme Court which support that rule will be found in the case of Buder v. Becker, 8 Cir., 185 F.2d 311, 315-316. In Western Casualty & Surety Co. v. Coleman, 8 Cir., 186 F.2d 40, 43, we said: “The burden of demonstrating error is upon the Casualty Company. In a case controlled by local law, that burden is a peculiarly heavy one. This Court is not an appellate court of the State of Missouri and establishes no rules of law for that State. We have repeatedly said that, in reviewing doubtful questions of local law, we would not adopt views contrary to those of the trial judge unless convinced of error, and that all that this Court reasonably can be expected to do in such cases is to see that the determination of the trial court is not induced J)y a clear misconception or misapplication of the local law. Russell v. Turner, 8 Cir., 148 F.2d 562, 564; Buder v. Becker, 8 Cir., 185 F.2d 311, 315, and cases cited. If a federal district judge has reached a permissible conclusion upon a question of local law, we will not reverse, even though we may think the law should be otherwise.”
The District Judge who tried this case gave painstaking consideration to the controlling issue of Missouri law. He reached not only a permissible conclusion, but, we think, the correct one.
The judgment is 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