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:
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Leola Studdert GISSEL, Executrix of the Estate of Julius Schutze Gissel, et al., Defendants-Appellants. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. C. J. THIBODEAUX AND COMPANY and the Travelers Indemnity Company, Defendants-Appellants.
No. 73-2829.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
April 26, 1974.
Robert M. Julian, Houston, Tex., for C. J. Thibodeaux & Co., et al.
Alan S. Dale, Houston, Tex., for Leola S. Gissel.
Jack Shepherd, Asst. U. S. Atty., Anthony J. P. Farris, U. S. Atty., Houston, Tex., Morton Hollander, Chief, Appellate Sec., Civ. Div., Lawrence F. Ledebur, Chief, Admiralty & Shipping Section, Robert E. Kopp, Dept, of Justice, Washington, D. C., Charles B. Wolfe, Asst. U. S. Atty., Houston, Tex., for plaintiff-ap-pellee.
Before ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge, and BELL and GEE, Circuit Judges.
Hon. Bailey Aldrich, Senior Circuit Judge of the First Circuit, sitting by designation.
ALDRICH, Senior Circuit Judge:
These are two consolidated actions arising out of the bankruptcy and the consequent failure of the owners of an American vessel, the S. S. SEA PIONEER, to pay customs duties imposed by virtue of 19 U.S.C. § 257 on entry following repairs made in a foreign country. Defendants Gissel and Thibodeaux, are so-called berthing agents whose business it is to make arrangements for entry, docking, attend-anee of customs agents, etc. and clearance, on behalf of vessels entering United States ports where they offer their services. In connection therewith each defendant annually files a blanket bond specified to apply to all vessels entered and cleared by them in the course of the year. The government is the obligee. In May 1964, the S. S. SEA PIONEER docked at Port Arthur, Texas, using Gissel’s services. Having been repaired while abroad, she incurred a duty obligation finally liquidated in 1967 at $14,217. In October 1965, the vessel docked at Galveston, Texas, using Thibo-deaux’s services, and having again been repaired abroad, incurred a duty obligation finally liquidated in 1968 at $57,674. The owners having become bankrupt without hawing paid, and the wessel having been sold abroad without satisfying these claims, the government sued defendants on their bonds. The district court found for the government for the penal sum ($10,000) of each bond, and defendants appeal. In a nutshell, it is defendants’ position that their bond covers only obligations for routine services rendered while the vessel was in port, and which they specifically requisitioned by executing Customs Form 3171, while the government claims that it covers the whole spectrum of the vessel’s liability.
At least at first blush the government appears correct. The bonds, executed on Customs' Form 7569, provided,
“(1) If the above-bounden principal shall pay to the collector of customs of said port(s) promptly on demand such penalties as may be incurred by the vessels, vehicles, or aircraft, together with the sums chargeable under law and regulations for such services as may be performed for said vessels, vehicles, or aircraft by customs officers or employees, and shall promptly pay any duties, charges, exactions, penalties, or other sums found legally due the United States from any master or other proper officer or owner of said vessels, vehicles, or aircraft on account of said vessels, vehicles, or aircraft.” (Emphasis suppl.)
Defendants contend, (a) that the bond does not in terms cover the duty imposed on account of foreign repairs; (b) that even if the form of the bond does in terms purport to cover such duties, in the context of its execution they were not covered when a berthing agent, rather than the vessel, was the party executing it; and (c) that in any event, although executing the bonds as principals, as between themselves and the vessel the agents were only sureties, and affording an extension to the vessel effected their discharge. Consideration of these defenses requires examination of the total circumstances.
Pursuant to statutory authority, 19 U.S.C. §§ 1623, 1624, the Treasury Department adopted regulations under which an entering vessel itself, or by its agent, must apply for customhouse and attendant services and give bond for payment. It is further provided that if a vessel wishes to clear without payment of duty resulting from foreign repairs it must make a deposit or give bond for such. 19 C.F.R. § 4.14. Defendants’ contention that the bonds which they signed did not in terms cover such duties, based on a construction they seek to give the prefatory “whereas” clauses, is not only unpersuasive in itself in view of the breadth of language, including the fact that there are four paragraphs in the bond referring to duties, but is firmly rebutted by the fact that the bond form which defendants signed, No. 7569, is particularly specified in 19 C.F. R. § 4.14 as suitable for covering the duty due on account of repairs. Defendants’ point, accordingly, must be that for some reason, although they signed such a broad bond, the intent was for their liability to be limited to only some, and not this portion, of the bond’s apparent undertakings.
Nothing in the language of the bond suggests a limitation. Nor did defendants’ later applications for permits to unlade the S. S. SEA PIONEER requesting only certain services, modify the bonds, which on their face applied in toto to any vessel “entered and cleared” by defendants. It is true, as defendants assert, that there is no statutory liability imposed upon a berthing agent for customs duties. Correspondingly, the statute provides that for such services as, concededly, are normally ordered by an agent, a bond shall be given by the “master, owner, or agent of such vessel,” 19 U.S.C. § 1451, whereas a duty bond is merely required to be “given,” with no mention made of agents. 19 C.F.R. § 4.-14. It does not follow, however, that if an agent voluntarily gives a bond which in terms covers obligations of his principal, it should be unenforcible. We see no reason why an agent may not furnish credit as a service to his principal if he wishes to. Cf. Caldwell Shipping Co. v. United States, 53 Cust.Ct. 311 (1964) (payment of duty by agent).
It must equally follow that since the very purpose of furnishing a duty bond is to permit the vessel to clear without paying the duty, the agent cannot claim that permitting the vessel to depart was an unconsented-to release of the security, or extension of credit to the principal, which discharged the surety. Nor are we persuaded by the argument that the government should have proceeded with more dispatch against the vessel. It may be, as defendants suggest, that berthing agents were never charged for uncollectible duty before, but, as the district court held, this does not mean that the liability was not clearly undertaken. We find no ambiguity in the instrument itself, or in the surrounding circumstances.
Affirmed.
. Now 19 U.S.C. § 1466.
. Strictly, Gissel, formerly d/b/a Collin & Gissel, is now deceased and is represented by bis executrix, and Thibodeaux is O. J. Thibodeaux & Co. Also named defendants, but not embraced in that term as used herein, are two indemnity companies that signed Gis-sel’s and Thibodeaux’s bonds as sureties.
. For doubtless good and sufficient reason, Gissel and Thibodeaux do not claim that, as they were agents of a disclosed principal (the vessel or its owners), under agency princi-pies the principal was the party chargeable and they were not. We do not, accordingly, pursue this question.

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: 2