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 "natural persons". 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:
Brian J. WOODS (89-3991), Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Eric DAHLBERG; George Wilson, Defendants-Appellees. Ernest Ralph ELLIS, Sr. (89-3992), Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AMERICAN RED CROSS, Defendant-Appellee.
Nos. 89-3991, 89-3992.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Submitted Nov. 29,1989.
Decided Jan. 9, 1990.
Ernest Ralph Ellis, Sr., Cambridge, Ohio, for plaintiff-appellant in no. 89-3992.
Brian J. Woods, Mansfield, Ohio, for plaintiff-appellant in no. 89-3991.
Anthony J. Celebrezze, Jr., Office of the Atty. Gen. of Ohio, Columbus, Ohio, for defendant-appellee Anthony Brigano.
Before MILBURN and GUY, Circuit Judges, and LIVELY, Senior Circuit Judge.
PER CURIAM.
These appeals have been referred to a panel of the court pursuant to Rule 9(a), Rules of the Sixth Circuit. The panel has consolidated the appeals since they raise the same issue.
Plaintiffs have both appealed from magistrate orders denying leave to proceed in forma pauperis. Sua sponte, we address the issue of whether magistrates have authority to deny a motion for pauper status and conclude that they do not.
The jurisdiction of magistrates is set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 636. Section 636(b)(1)(A) provides:
(A) a judge may designate a magistrate to hear and determine any pretrial matter pending before the court, except a motion for injunctive relief, for judgment on the pleadings, for summary judgment, to dismiss or quash an indictment or information made by the defendant, to suppress evidence in a criminal case, to dismiss or to permit maintenance of a class action, to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and to involuntarily dismiss an action. A judge of the court may reconsider any pretrial matter under this sub-paragraph (A) where it has been shown that the magistrate’s order is clearly erroneous or contrary to law.
Although section 636(b)(1)(A) does not specifically reference a motion to proceed in forma pauperis, we conclude that a denial of such a motion is the functional equivalent of an involuntary dismissal and is outside the scope of a magistrate’s authority.
A district judge is free to refer a motion for pauper status to a magistrate and if the decision is to grant such a motion, the magistrate may enter such an order. If the decision is to deny, however, the magistrate must make such a recommendation to the district judge who will then take final action. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B).
These two cases are REMANDED to the district court for a decision by the district judge as to whether pauper status should be denied. The remands are without prejudice to the plaintiffs’ right to appeal in the event pauper status is denied.
. It is clear that a denial of pauper status by a district judge is appealable. Roberts v. United States District Court, 339 U.S. 844, 70 S.Ct. 954, 94 L.Ed. 1326 (1950), and Foster v. United States, 344 F.2d 698 (6th Cir.1965).
. We note that the Application to Proceed in Forma Pauperis (AO form 240, Rev. 6/86) is consistent with our conclusion in that it provides a signature line for a magistrate to sign the order if the petition is granted but, if the petition is denied, the signature line on the order references only the district judge.
. In Ambrose v. Welch, 729 F.2d 1084 (6th Cir.1984), we held that an order denying pauper status to an applicant was not appealable since it was not clear whether the parties consented to the jurisdiction of the magistrate. 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1). However, in Ambrose the question of the propriety of the magistrate entering an order of denial was neither raised nor addressed. The issue of consent would seldom, if ever, be implicated in these proceedings since the application to proceed in pauper status must be granted before the suit is filed. Thus, at this stage of the proceedings there is really no opposite party able to consent.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1