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:
KAISER v. STANDARD OIL CO. OF NEW JERSEY.
No. 8154.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
April 1, 1937.
T. G. Schirmeyer, of Houston, Tex., for appellant.
J. C. Hutcheson, III., of Houston, Tex., for appellee.
Before FOSTER and SIBLEY, Circuit Judges, and STRUM, District Judge.
STRUM, District Judge.
Libelant Frank C. Kaiser shipped aboard the motor vessel Vistula as a fireman. His wages were $65 per month, plus room and board. As the Vistula approached the northern European coast on September 30, 1935, she ran into a heavy storm, causing her to roll and pitch heavily. During the storm libelant was on watch in the fireroom, and had gone to an upper deck to empty a bucket over the side. Returning to the fireroom with the empty bucket in his left hand, libelant was descending a companionway ladder from which he fell, injuring his knee, hip, and elbow.
The ladder in question is about eight feet high, and runs from one deck to another at an angle of about thirty degrees from the perpendicular, quite close to and at right angles with a vertical steel bulkhead. The ladder consists of a series of wooden steps and has a tubular metal handrail on each side. The inner handrail is secured, top and bottom, to the vertical steel bulkhead alongside the ladder. Opposite the second step from the top of the ladder, the inner handrail is further secured to the steel bulkhead by a metal T piece, similar to a T pipe fitting, the base of which is riveted by a flange to the bulkhead, so that the stem of the T piece is at right angles with the bulkhead and the top of the T piece parallel with the ladder. The tubular handrail, which is in two sections, is screwed into each end of the top of the T, so as to form a continuous handrail along the entire length of the ladder. The top of 'the T piece has a slight ridge at each end above the inside threads, where the handrail screws into it, which ridge is not rounded off. Libelant claims that as he was descending the ladder, running his right hand along the inner handrail for support, his hand struck a sharp burr on the outer end of the T piece, which caused him to instinctively raise his hand from the handrail just as the ship rolled, thus causing him to be thrown from the ladder, and that such condition of the T piece rendered the ship unseaworthy.
Libelant appeals from a decree below awarding him $250 for wages, maintenance and cure, and denying him indemnity damages, the District Court finding that “there was no burr on the handrail and that the ship was not unseaworthy.” Libelant as-1 serts that the award for wages, maintenance and cure was insufficient and the finding as to seaworthiness erroneous.
The decree below was rendered March 18, 1936. On or about April 2, 1936, respondents sent libelant a check for $250 covering the amount awarded by the decree for wages, maintenance, and cure. This check was cashed by libelant on or before April 14, 1936. Appeal was entered June 6, 1936.
Accepting the fruits of a judgment and thereafter appealing therefrom are totally- inconsistent positions, and the election to pursue one course is deemed an abandonment of the other. What, if anything, was due libelant for maintenance and cure was a controverted question below. Libelant having accepted the benefits of that separable portion of the decree, he is estopped to now question it in that respect. He will not be heard to both approbate and reprobate as to the same matter. As to this portion of the decree libelant is within the general rule, and not within the exceptions, stated in Carson Lumber Co. v. St. Louis Co. (C.C.A.) 209 F. 191, 193. See, also, Finefrock v. Kenova Co. (C.C. A.) 37 F.(2d) 310; The Velma L. Hamlin (C.C.A.) 40 F.(2d) 852; 2 R.C.L. 61, 62.
The District Court’s findings that there was no burr on the handrail and that the ship was not unseaworthy are fully supported by the evidence. The only testimony that such a burr existed is from the libelant himself, who also admitted on cross-examination that he had frequently used this ladder and handrail on previous occasions and had never before noticed such a burr; also that several days after the accident he went back and examined the rail, but was unable to find a burr or sharp spot. He sought to explain the latter by his testimony that a member of the crew had gone over the T piece and rail with a file after the accident. The man who did this, however, testified as libelant’s witness that when libelant told him of the accident he examined the T piece and could find no rough or sharp places on it by feeling it with his hand, but went over it with a file “in case something stuck out of it.” The captain and chief engineer of the vessel testified that they examined the handrail, the former almost immediately after the accident, and the latter next day, and could find no rough or sharp burr on the rail. Other members of the crew who frequently used the ladder in question testified to the absence of any such burr as libelant described, leaving libelant not only uncorroborated, but persuasively contradicted in the assertion that such a burr existed. We find no reason to disturb the conclusions of the District Judge upon the evidence. Other errors assigned have been examined, but no reversible error found.
Affirmed.

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