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:
Harry D. COMBS, Appellant, v. Caspar W. WEINBERGER, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Appellee.
No. 74-1019.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Submitted May 17, 1974.
Decided July 16, 1974.
Franklin W. Kern, Charleston, W. Va., on brief for appellant.
John A. Field, III, U. S. Atty., and Ray L. Hampton, II, Asst. U. S. Atty., on brief for appellee.
Before CRAVEN, BUTZNER and RUSSELL, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Harry D. Combs filed an application for Social Security disability benefits in 1971. After a hearing, the administrative law judge held that he was disabled as of June 30, 1963, the date his insured status expired. The Appeals Council took up the case on its own motion and denied benefits. Combs brought an action for statutory review in the district court but lost on the Secretary’s motion for summary judgment.
Combs, 42 years old at the time of the hearing, has an eighth-grade education. His work experience is limited to manual labor — picking slate on a coal tipple, driving trucks, and some railroad work. The medical evidence established that Combs had suffered before June 1963: (1) a fracture of the left wrist, 1948, with a residual twisting deformity; (2) a gunshot wound of the right thigh, 1951, with complications that required neurological surgery, leaving Combs with “post-traumatic reflex sympathetic dystrophy” of the right foot; (3) a compression fracture of the 12th dorsal vertebra, disagnosed as “old” in 1957. Combs testified that he quit his job as a truck driver in 1959 because of pain in his back and left wrist and because pain in his leg prevented him from sitting or standing for long periods. After 1969 he tried several jobs but was unable to work regularly because of pain. He has not worked at.all since 1959. To corroborate his testimony, Combs presented a neighbor who testified that in the spring of 1963 Combs was unable to work. A vocational expert testified that, with the disabilities Combs said he suffered in 1963, there would have been no jobs in the national economy that he could perform.
The admininstrative law judge made an explicit finding that Combs was “a sincere witness in his own behalf,” App. 13, accepted his testimony of disability, and held that he was entitled to benefits. The Appeals Council reversed the hearing judge’s decision, stating:
It is the opinion of the Appeals Council that the claimant, during the time in question, could have been engaged in his usual work as a truckdriver or other work similar to that performed by an unimpaired individual.
App. 7. The district court concluded that this decision was supported by substantial evidence. We hold that it is not, and reverse.
Of the four elements of proof relevant to disability, Underwood v. Ribicoff, 298 F.2d 850, 851 (4th Cir. 1962), the record contains uncontradicted evidence on three. There are objective medical facts showing existence of the three injuries before 1963; claimant’s subjective description of his pain and disability, corroborated by his neighbor; and evidence of claimant’s educational and work background. The fourth element we identified in Underwood v. Ribicoff is missing: the record contains no medical opinions on “subsidiary questions of fact,” i. e., claimant’s ability to work in 1963. Such opinion evidence, however, is not the sole determinant of disbility, 20 C.F.R. § 404.1526, and we have held that subjective evidence is entitled to great weight, “especially where such evidence is uncontradicted in the record,” Underwood v. Ribicoff, supra, at 852. See also Hayes v. Gardner, 376 F.2d 517 (4th Cir. 1967).
In this case the Appeals Council ignored the subjective evidence entirely. As to the wrist fracture, it stated: “Both his return to work and the absence of further mention in the record are persuasive indications that the injury did not result in serious functional limitations.” As to the gunshot wound, it said: “There is no indication that following this procedure, and the healing of the wound, the claimant had further complications or difficulty with his leg. He, in fact, again returned to work and had substantial earnings for several years thereafter.” And, with regard to the back injury, it said: “There is no specific information concerning this disorder and it did not prevent the claimant from working thereafter.” These statements are apparently the sole premise for the Appeals Council’s final conclusion that Combs was not disabled in 1963.
This conclusion is not supported by substantial evidence. First, the inferences that the council drew from the absence of medical records and Combs’ ability to work in 1949 and 1951 are insubstantial. They do not relate directly to Combs’ condition in 1963, they are considerably weakened by the fact that Combs did not keep a steady job after 1959, and they do not take account of the combined effect of the three injuries. Lackey v. Celebrezze, 349 F.2d 76 (4th Cir. 1965). Second, the inferences are contrary to Combs’ testimony about his pain and disability. The Appeals Council may be entitled to disbelieve the claimant’s testimony, even though uncontradicted in the record, but we think it must make a specific holding on the point when the hearing judge has found the claimant’s testimony credible. See Selewich v. Finch, 312 F.Supp. 191, 195 (D.Mass.1969); Egan v. Gardner, 277 F.Supp. 929 (N.D.Cal.1968); cf. Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 492-497, 71 S.Ct. 451, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951). In this case the Appeals Council did not even acknowledge the claimant’s testimony; its summary of the evidence omits all mention of Combs’ description of his disability. The Secretary must consider this evidence. DePaepe v. Richardson, 464 F.2d 92 (5th Cir. 1972); Bittel v. Richardson, 441 F.2d 1193 (3d Cir. 1971); Moore v. Finch, 418 F.2d 1224 (4th Cir. 1969); Underwood v. Ribicoff, supra.
Accordingly, we reverse the district court and remand with instructions to reverse the Secretary’s denial of benefits and remand for further administrative proceedings.
Reversed and remanded.
. All of the forms Combs filed prior to the administrative hearing indicated that the back fracture occurred at the same time as the wrist fracture, although there was some uncertainty about the date (1948, as opposed to 1949 or 1950). At the hearing, the administrative law judge apparently misread the medical report to indicate that the fracture occurred in 1957 rather than that it was diagnosed then and this misapprehension crept into the hearing when he asked Combs: “March 12, 1957, I believe, this happened, according to Exhibit 24, isn’t that correct — that you had a fracture of your spine?” Combs answered, “Yes, sir, my spine.” App. 40. The error was repeated by Combs’ attorney at App. 50, and it may have affected the administrative law judge’s decision, App. 12. The Appeals Council did not attempt to fix a date for the spine injury, but proceeded on the medical report’s statement that it was “old” in 1957.
. The regulations that the Secretary has promulgated pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 405(a) and 423(d)(5) may be read to require the claimant to furnish medical opinion evidence as part of his burden of proof. In this ease the Appeals Council did not mention or rely on these regulations. Consequently we do not know how the Secretary interprets them. Moreover, we are unwilling to affirm the Secretary’s decision on a basis not mentioned in the administrative record. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943). The pertinent regulations are 20 C.FJEt. §§ 404.1523 and 404.1524(c).

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