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:
ALLIED CHEMICAL COATINGS, INC., Defendant, Appellant, v. ALLIED CHEMICAL CORPORATION, Plaintiff, Appellee.
No. 5540.
United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.
Heard Oct. 6, 1959.
Decided Dec. 4, 1959.
Joseph Landis, Boston, Mass., with whom Arthur T. Wasserman and Was-serman & Salter, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for appellant.
Before WOODBURY, Chief Judge, and HARTIGAN and ALDRICH, Circuit Judges.
ALDRICH, Circuit Judge.
Appellee, a New York corporation, brought suit in the district court against appellant, a Massachusetts corporation, alleging unfair competition and injury to its trade name. Jurisdiction was asserted to rest upon diversity of citizenship and amount in controversy, Title 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a) (1). Plaintiff sought injunctive relief in accordance with the Massachusetts “anti-dilution” statute, Mass.G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 110, § 7A, and an accounting. During the trial, but before the close of plaintiff’s case, it appeared that the parties were not in competition (which is not fatal to in-junctive relief under this statute), and that plaintiff had not made, and could not make, any showing of past or threatened pecuniary damages. The court thereupon announced, on its own motion, that it was unable to see on what basis the jurisdictional amount was involved. A discussion ensued, during which the court indicated that in its opinion the value of plaintiff’s good will could not be the sole judicial yardstick. At the end of the colloquy counsel for plaintiff-appellee stated, “I wonder whether your Honor would be willing to entertain a motion that the plaintiff’s case be dismissed without prejudice, in view of your Honor’s strong feelings about jurisdiction.” The court then entered an order dismissing the action for want of jurisdiction. Defendant-appellant appealed. Plaintiff did not appeal, and, as appellee, submitted, without brief or argument.
The ground of appellant’s argument in the court below was that the court was adopting an improper standard by which to determine the amount involved in an action for injunctive relief. Strictly, however, the discussion was premature. Because of appellant’s persistent objections to plaintiff’s evidence the record did not, and does not now, contain sufficient foundation for even appellant’s theory of jurisdiction. Consequently, its argument in this court cannot be, and is not, that jurisdiction had been shown. Instead, it says that it was “error for the Court to preclude the plaintiff from going further by dismissing the action before the plaintiff had concluded its case.”
A short answer to this might well be that the court did not “preclude” the plaintiff — the plaintiff did not seek to offer any further evidence. On the contrary, plaintiff was the one, ultimately, to have suggested that the court dismiss. But quite apart from that, appellant could have no standing to complain because of injury to the plaintiff. Merely “precluding” the plaintiff could not injure appellant. If the court had refused to dismiss, it could not have compelled plaintiff to introduce evidence, and if plaintiff had offered nothing further, the record would have remained where it now is.
Possibly appellant has poorly stated its position, and what it really means is that it should have been permitted itself, if plaintiff chose not to do so, to introduce evidence which would show a jurisdictional basis. If so, it made no such attempt in the court below.
The matter comes down to this. In the course of plaintiff’s case the court of its own motion, and quite properly so, since the issue was basic, expressed its views on what was required to establish the jurisdictional amount in a suit based upon the Massachusetts statute. The plaintiff voiced regret, but stated that since the court felt as it did, it preferred not to proceed. Appellant indicated its disagreement, both with the court’s views on jurisdiction, and with plaintiff’s desire to discontinue. The court thereupon, rather than granting plaintiff’s motion to dismiss, reiterated its views as to the proof needed to establish the jurisdictional amount, and dismissed the action for lack of jurisdiction, stating that if appellant disagreed with its opinion, it could appeal. On the record, at the time of dismissal, there had been no affirmative showing of jurisdiction under any theory, either by evidence, or by-offer of proof.
The court could not, by telling appellant he could appeal, confer upon us jurisdiction to pass upon jurisdictional theories in vacuo, and we do not do so. And, since we have been shown no basis of jurisdiction in the district court, we do not reach substantive questions of a defendant’s general right to appeal from a dismissal without prejudice. See New York, Chicago & St. Louis R. Co. v. Var-daman, 8 Cir., 1950, 181 F.2d 769, and cases cited therein.
An order will be entered dismissing the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
. Compare Food Fair Stores, Inc. v. Food Fair, Inc., 1 Cir., 1949, 177 F.2d 177, and Seven-Up Co. v. Blue Note Inc., 7 Cir., 1958, 260 F.2d 584, with Ambassador East, Inc. v. Orsatti, Inc., 3 Cir., 1958, 257 F.2d 79. See, also, McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 1936, 298 U.S. 178, 181, 56 S.Ct. 780, 80 L.Ed. 1135.

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: 1