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:
David E. CHADWICK, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ESPERANZA TRADE & TRANSPORT, LTD., et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 75-2584.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
March 17, 1977.
Rehearing Denied April 14, 1977.
Douglas A. Barnes, Donald W. Keck, Dallas, Tex., for plaintiff-appellant.
Joe T. Hood, Dallas, Tex., for defendantsappellees.
Before JONES, WISDOM and GOD-BOLD, Circuit Judges.
JONES, Circuit Judge:
The jurisdiction of this action stems from diversity of citizenship. The governing law is that of Texas. The appellant, David E. Chadwick, was plaintiff in the district court. He and four others owned all of the stock issued by Edward T. Robertson and Son, Inc. It sold assets to Belship Company, a Bermuda corporation, which by change of name is now Edward T. Robertson and Son, Ltd., one of the parties to this action. As a part of the transaction Belship entered into employment contracts with each of the five stockholders. Some of the contracts were for three years and others were for five years. The annual compensation as fixed by schedules annexed to the contracts ranged from eight to twenty thousand dollars. The contract with the appellant was for five years at an annual salary of twelve thousand dollars, which was subsequently increased to sixteen thousand dollars. It was provided in the contract that:
“The term of employment under this agreement shall commence as of Decernber 1, 1971 and shall continue for the period set forth in the schedule annexed hereto, subject to termination by either party upon ninety days written notice prior to the end of said term, or thereafter upon like notice.”
The agreement provided that “all disputes arising out of, or in connection with, this agreement, shall be submitted to arbitration in the City of New York by the American Arbitration Association in accordance with its rules then in effect.”
On September 18, 1974, Edward T. Robertson terminated the contract with the appellant, paying his salary to that date and for ninety days additional. The appellant brought an action claiming compensation under the contract for the remainder of the five year term. Named as defendants were Edward T. Robertson and Son, Ltd., the employer, and Esperanza Trade & Transport, Ltd., which had guaranteed performance of the contract by the employer. The defendants filed motions to dismiss on the ground, among others, that the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The Robertson firm filed a motion to stay pending arbitration.
The district court entered an order reciting the contract provision herein quoted holding that the employer had a right to terminate the contract at any time on ninety days notice and dismissed the complaint. Chadwick has appealed.
The contract is before the Court for construction. Resort to the fine print or the footnotes is not required for our consideration of the issue. Black-letter law will suffice. In construing a contract the Court will determine and give effect to the intent of the parties. The entire contract will be considered. Effect will be given, if possible, to all of the language of the contract. In the absence of custom or usage to the contrary ordinary words are to be given their ordinary meaning. If the language of the contract is ambiguous, extrinsic evidence may be received to determine its meaning.
If, as the appellees contend and the district court found the contract could be terminated at any time upon ninety days notice, it can be urged most plausibly that the last twelve words of the proviso—
“subject to termination by either party upon ninety days written notice prior to the end of said term, or thereafter upon like notice.”
are surplusage and without any meaning whatever. It should not be so held.
It can be plausibly argued that the word “thereafter” can refer only to “the end of said” [five year] “term.” If so, then perhaps it would follow that the parties contemplated an indefinite employment relationship after the five years to terminate upon the contractual ninety days notice.
If, as the appellees contend, and as the district court found, the contract could be terminated on ninety days notice, why were some of the contracts for three and others for five years? If, as might be shown by extrinsic evidence, tenured employment was an inducement or a consideration for the sale of assets, would the construction have been different?
These questions seem apparent. There may be others. The answers to these questions are, initially, for the district court. It is not intended that anything here said shall be regarded as suggesting answers. The language of the termination provision is ambiguous. The implied holding to the contrary by the district court is erroneous. The judgment will be REVERSED and the cause will be REMANDED for further proceedings.

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