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:
Margaret HASTINGS, Appellant, v. Margaret HECKLER, Secretary, Health & Human Services, Appellee.
No. 83-1665.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted Dec. 14, 1983.
Decided Feb. 24, 1984.
Rehearing Denied May 2, 1984.
Gordon Rosenmeier, Little Falls, Minn., for appellant.
James M. Rosenbaum, U.S. Atty., Minneapolis, Minn., Michael J. Zarski, Asst. Regional Atty., Dept. of Health and Human Services, Chicago, Ill., for appellee; Donna Morros Weinstein, Regional Atty., Dept. of Health and Human Services, Chicago, Ill., of counsel.
Before HEANEY, ROSS and FAGG, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Margaret Hastings appeals from the decision of the district court which adopted the magistrate’s recommendation that Hastings was precluded from receiving spousal benefits under Section 202 of the Social Security Act.
Hastings, a divorcee, was married to a covered wage-earner for 12 years. Hastings was employed as a public school teacher until she retired in August of 1978. In January of 1979, the Social Security Act was amended to allow divorced wives to collect spousal benefits if they were married for over 10 years. The law prior to the amendment required a marriage of 20 years. Due to this amendment, Hastings applied for and was granted divorced wife’s insurance benefits. In July of 1979, however, the Social Security Administration discovered that Hastings was receiving a monthly teacher’s pension of $475.85. A hearing was held before an administrative law judge (ALJ) who determined that Hastings could not collect spousal benefits as they were reduced to zero when offset against the amount of her pension. The ALJ further found an overpayment of $855.80 and ordered that repayment could not be waived. Upon exhaustion of administrative remedies, Hastings brought suit in federal court. The matter went before a magistrate who affirmed the offset decision of the ALJ but ordered that, in good conscience, the Secretary could not require payment of the $855.80. The district court agreed with the recommendation of the magistrate.
On appeal, Hastings asserts that although section 402(b)(4)(a) requires recipients of government pensions to offset that amount against the amount of spousal benefits, section 334(g) of the 1977 amendments relieves this requirement. Section 334(g) describes those individuals who are relieved from the offset requirement, in pertinent part, as follows:
(B) who at the time of application or initial entitlement * * * under subsection (b) * * * meets the requirements of that subsection as it was in effect and being administered in January, 1977.
This issue was addressed by the district court in its memorandum opinion. The district court held that
The exemption applies to those who are entitled to benefits under this subsection as that subsection was administered in 1977. In 1977 plaintiff would not have qualified for benefits under subsection b of 402 because she was not a “divorced wife (as so defined).” In 1977, section 416 defined a divorced wife as a woman who had been married for 20 years. It was not until the 1979 amendments that this was changed to 10 years so to allow plaintiff to receive benefits under section 402b.
Thus, the court concluded that Hastings’ spousal benefits were properly offset due to receipt of a government pension.
We have carefully studied the record, including the district court opinion, the magistrate’s report and recommendation, the ALJ’s decision, the briefs and the arguments of the parties to this action. We find no merit to appellant’s arguments, and accordingly affirm pursuant to Rule 14 of the rules of this court.

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