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:
Brenda Rowe HALE, Appellant, v. NORTH LITTLE ROCK HOUSING AUTHORITY; David A. Bogard, Attorney; Director William Clements, Appellees.
No. 83-2151.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted Nov. 10, 1983.
Decided Nov. 17, 1983.
Brenda Rowe Hale, pro se.
Janet L. James, North Little Rock, Ark., for appellee.
Before HEANEY, BRIGHT and McMIL-LIAN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Brenda Rowe Hale, a black woman, appeals from a final judgment entered in the District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissing her employment and housing discrimination claims against the North Little Rock Housing Authority, its attorney and director. For reversal appellant argues, inter alia, that the district court erred in refusing to appoint counsel to represent her and in finding that the North Little Rock CETA Program rather than the Housing Authority was her employer for purposes of a Title VII action. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
Appellant began working for the North Little Rock Housing Authority as a CETA employee on May 16, 1977. Her job was to drive a van for the Housing Authority’s senior citizen program. On May 26, 1977, she was discharged after she refused to drive the van at night. Appellant explained that she was attending classes at a local college three nights a week and therefore could not work evenings. Sometime thereafter, the Housing Authority instituted successful proceedings in state court to evict appellant for nonpayment of rent.
Claiming that she was fired because of her race and sex, appellant filed an employment discrimination claim with EEOC against the Housing Authority. Appellant received a right-to-sue letter on January 15, 1982, and filed a motion in the district court seeking the appointment of counsel on April 14, 1982. Thé court construed this motion as the filing of an action under Title VII. The motion was conditionally denied pending a showing that appellant could not retain private counsel. In the meantime, appellant filed a complaint setting forth claims of employment and housing discrimination against the Housing Authority. Several months later, appellant filed an affidavit from an attorney who stated that he would not accept appellant’s case on a contingency basis. The district court then denied the motion for appointment of counsel, explaining that the complaint did not raise meritorious issues of a complex nature warranting the appointment of counsel.
A bench trial was held on July 14, 1983. The court held that appellant could not maintain a Title VII action against the Housing Authority because her employer for Title VII purposes was the North Little Rock CETA Program. The court further held that appellant’s discharge was not based on race or sex but on her unwillingness to carry out her job responsibilities.
With respect to appellant’s discriminatory eviction claim, the district court determined that she was several months delinquent in her rent and had been involved in several altercations with Housing Authority management and her neighbors at the time eviction proceedings were instituted. On these facts the court found no housing discrimination against appellant on the basis of her race or sex. The court accordingly awarded judgment and costs to defendants.
Appellant’s claim that the district court erred in denying her motion for appointment of counsel is meritless. Section 706(f) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f) (1976), provides that the district court may appoint counsel “in such circumstances as the court may deem just.” This decision is reviewable only for an abuse of discretion. See, e.g., Hudak v. Curators of the University of Missouri, 586 F.2d 105, 106-07 (8th Cir.1978). In ruling upon a motion for appointment of counsel, the district court may consider the merits of the claim, the plaintiff’s efforts to obtain counsel, and the plaintiff’s financial ability to retain an attorney. See Bradshaw v. Zoological Society, 662 F.2d 1301, 1318 (9th Cir.1981); Gaston v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 556 F.2d 1305, 1309 (5th Cir.1977). The district court did not abuse its discretion in the present case because appellant made almost no effort to retain counsel and the issues presented were neither complex nor facially meritorious.
We leave open the question whether the Housing Authority or the North Little Rock CETA Program was appellant’s employer for the purposes of this Title VII action and affirm the judgment of the district court on the merits. Appellant admitted that she refused to work during the evenings as required by the job. Therefore, the district court’s finding of no discrimination is not clearly erroneous. See Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982).
We have reviewed appellant’s remaining claims and find them to be without merit.
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.
. The Honorable Henry Woods, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
. Appellant alleged that her discharge did not comply with the CETA grievance procedure and violated CETA regulations proscribing CETA employees from working at night. These claims apparently were not raised in the district court and we do not reach them here. Appellant also claimed that her husband was denied a job with the Housing Authority as a patrolman because of a low score he received on a civil service test. Appellant does not have standing to complain of any violations of her husband’s rights.

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: 0