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:
Ernestine BENTLEY, Bonnie Collins, Ben Hall and Vera Hall, Petitioners, v. NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Respondent. South East Coal Company, Intervenor.
No. 79-1396.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued May 24, 1979.
Decided March 9, 1981.
Angela Sherbo, Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky, Inc., Alva A. Hollon, Jr., Hollon, Hollon & Hollon, Hazard, Ky., for petitioners.
Elliott Moore, Deputy Associate Gen. Counsel, N.L.R.B., David A. Fleischer, Washington, D. C., Emil C. Farkas, Director, Region 9, N.L.R.B., Richard A. Fleischer, Cincinnati, Ohio, for respondent.
Before LIVELY and KEITH, Circuit Judges, and BOYLE, District Judge.
Hon. Patricia Boyle, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, sitting by designation.
ORDER
Bonnie Collins, Ernestine Bentley, and Vera Hall brought this matter upon a petition for review of a May 24, 1979 order for the NLRB reported at 242 NLRB 95. That decision dismissed a consolidated complaint against South East Coal Co. as being time barred under Section 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act.
The petitioners are daughters of Ben Hall. Both before and after his retirement from South East Coal Co. in 1954 Ben Hall was an active supporter of the union. In 1962 and 1963 he picketed at the company’s premises during a strike which the union had called against it. Daniel Quillen, vice president in charge of operations of the company, who has done all its hiring since December 1971 was aware of Ben Hall’s membership in and activities on behalf of the union.
In August, 1976, Collins and Bentley filed complaints with the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, alleging that the company had refused to employ them because of their sex, in violation of the state civil rights law. Their aunt, who had previously filed a similar complaint, was subsequently offered employment by the company under a conciliation agreement. Under that agreement, the company also placed an advertisement in local newspapers, stating that it was an equal opportunity employer, and that it was seeking applications from all qualified persons. The advertisement further stated that all previous applications were considered inactive, and that any past applicants who wished to be considered for employment must reapply.
As a result, Bentley filed an application for employment, dated September 3, 1976, and received by the company on September 16, 1976. Vera Hall filed an application dated September 17, 1976, and received by the company on September 20, 1976. Collins filed an application dated December 8, 1976, and received by the company on December 11, 1976. The application forms stated that all applications would be considered inactive after six months, and that anyone who still wished to be considered for employment after that period would have to reapply.
Company vice-president Quillen interviewed Bentley on September 24, 1976, and Vera Hall on September 29. Quillen decided, on the days the interviews were held, that he would not hire these applicants, and did not subsequently reconsider the decision. He did not interview Collins or reconsider his prior rejection of her. None of the sisters subsequently reapplied for employment.
The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights dismissed the sex discrimination complaint filed by Collins and Bentley in September, 1977. They filed motions for reconsideration, which the Commission denied, indicating that the company had said that it had not hired, and would not hire, Collins and Bentley because their father, Ben Hall, had a pro-union reputation.
On November 22, 1977, Collins filed a charge with the NLRB alleging that the company had discriminatorily refused to hire her. This charge was served on the company on November 23, 1977. On December 5,1977, Bentley filed, and served on the company, a charge alleging that the company had discriminatorily refused to hire her. On March 27, 1978, the Regional Director issued a complaint alleging that, [Sjince on or about May 23, 1977, the company had hired other employees while discriminatorily refusing to hire Collins and Bentley. On May 30, 1978, the complaint was amended to allege that Vera Hall, as well as Collins and Bentley, was discriminatorily denied employment “[Sjince on or about May 23, 1977.”
On the foregoing facts, the Board found, in agreement with the ALJ, that the company had refused, prior to May 23, 1977, to hire each of the three sisters because of their father’s reputation as an active supporter of the union. However, the Board concluded that the general counsel had failed to prove that any discriminatory refusal to hire had occurred on or after May 23, 1977. Accordingly, the Board found that any unfair labor practices occurred more than six months before the filing of the charges herein, and were therefore barred by Section 10(b) of the Act. The Board therefore dismissed the complaint in its entirety.
Our standard for reviewing the Board’s finding of fact here is whether there is substantial evidence to support the Board’s decision. See N. L. R. B. v. Challenge-Cook Bro. of Ohio, Inc., 374 F.2d 147 (6th Cir. 1967). We believe that the Board’s finding that the company refused to hire the petitioners before May 23, 1977, and not after that date, is supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, the petition for review is denied.

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