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:
McINDOE v. UNITED STATES.
No. 12922.
United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.
Feb. 28, 1952.
James Cole, Bartlett F. Cole, Portland, Or., for appellant.
Henry L. Hess, U. S. Atty., John R. Brooke, Asst. U. S. Atty., Portland, Or., Holmes Baldridge, Asst. Atty. Gen., and D. Vance Swann and Thomas E. Walsh, Attys., Department of Justice, Washington, D. C., for appellee.
Before STEPHENS, HEALY and BONE, Circuit Judges.
BONE, Circuit Judge.
Appellant, William C. Mclndoe, brought this action under 38 U.S.C.A. § 817 to recover on a $10,000 policy of National Service Life Insurance issued to his son, William C. Mclndoe, Jr., in which the father is the agreed beneficiary. The case was tried before the United States District Court for the District of Oregon sitting without a jury, and judgment was entered for the United States.
The undisputed facts are set forth in a pre-trial order. They reveal that the policy was issued during the military service of deceased, effective September 28, 1943, and continued in force throughout his active duty period. He was discharged from service on April 26, 1946, and premiums for the following months were either paid by direct remittance, or waived (by administrative action), through May 28, 1947. The last premium was due May 28, 1947 and was paid May 1, 1947. A thirty-one day grace period existed, keeping the policy effective 31 days after the last premium payment. The policy was in effect (including such grace period) until July 29, 1947. Insured died August 24, 1947.
Appellant does not contend that the premium due June 28, 1947 was paid. Rather, he argues, that because of erroneous and misleading information furnished by the Veterans’ Administration in a letter dated May 29, 1947, directed to insured, the latter was led to believe that a credit of $25.90 existed in his account which was available to pay premiums. Relying on such information, says appellant, insured did not pay the June 28, 1947 premium.
These facts are urged as a reason for applying the doctrine of estoppel against the government, thus excluding the fact of nonpayment of premium as a defense by the government. The trial judge rejected this contention and in his ruling carefully narrowed the issue before him which, as indicated, related to payment of premiums due on a policy of National Service Life Insurance. He did not attempt to decide, nor do we, whether the doctrine may ever be successfully invoked against the government. His conclusion finds full support in the cases. He said: “It is unnecessary to pass upon the question of whether the letter, together with the other evidence in the case, contains all the elements of an estoppel for the reason that I have come to the conclusion that the United States may not be estopped to assert any defense available to it on a policy of National Service Life Insurance because of any action of an employee of the Veterans Administration. * * * On the authority of the Loveland case [United States v. Loveland, 3 Cir., 25 F.2d 447] and in view of the subsequent decisions which support the doctrine therein enunciated, I find that the United States is not estopped to raise the defense of nonpayment of premium on a National Service Life Insurance policy * * * »
That the District Court’s statement is an accurate summary of the law on this question is clear. As pointed out in James v. United States, 4 Cir., 185 F.2d 115, 118, “It is well settled that the United States is in a position different from that of private insurers and is not estopped by the laches or unauthorized acts of its agents. Federal Crop Ins. Corp. v. Merrill, 1947, 332 U.S. 380, 68 S.Ct. 1, 92 L.Ed. 10; Wilber National Bank v. United States, 1935, 294 U.S. 120, 55 S.Ct. 362, 79 L.Ed. 798; United States v. Norton, 5 Cir., 1935, 77 F.2d 731; United States v. Loveland, 3 Cir., 1928, 25 F.2d 447.”
Appellant points to Rodgers v. United States, D.C., 66 F.Supp. 663, as indicating that the decision of the Third Circuit in United States v. Loveland, supra, (relied upon by appellee) was not considered a final determination even in the district courts in its own Circuit, stating that the District Court “went on to hold that the United States was subject to the same rules as a private insurance company.” However, a reading of the Rodgers case clearly reveals that the only issue there raised was whether nonpayment of premiums was an affirmative defense of the insurer, or whether the burden of proving payment rested on the plaintiff. The only language in that case bearing on the estoppel issue in the instant controversy fails to sustain appellant’s contention, since the court, in finding it unnecessary to determine whether late delivery of a policy estops the insurer from asserting nonpayment of premiums, said, [66 F.Supp. 665], “* * * the late delivery of the certificate, even if it were considered * * * a late delivery of the policy, could not estop the United States. Wilber Nat. Bank v. United States, supra; Sternfeld v. United States, D.C.N.D.N.Y., 1929, 32 F.2d 789.”
Kontovich v. United States, 6 Cir., 1938, 99 F.2d 661, relied on by appellant is not in point. The court there held that the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs was authorized under the Statute to determine that a veteran was no longer permanently disabled and that disability payments should cease, even though the veteran had previously obtained a judgment against the United States on a war risk insurance policy. The decision is not relevant to the question here posed. Other decisions cited by appellant to support the proposition that policies and statutes should be liberally construed in favor of the veteran similarly shed no direct light on the specific question with which we are here concerned.
Judgment affirmed.
. Although this statement was taken from the agreed statement of facts, the true effect of the grace period is to continue the policy in force for a period of thirty-one days from and after the date on which the premium was due, rather than from and after the date on which the premium was paid. See §§ 10.3414, 10.-3415, Title 38, C.F.R., 1941 Supplement (R. & P. R-3414, 3415, Veterans’ Administration). While attention is called to this error it does not affect the result.

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