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:
Neil ABRAMSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HARBOR ISLAND MARINA, INC., Defendant-Appellee. HARBOR ISLAND MARINA, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Neil ABRAMSON, Defendant-Appellee.
Nos. 86-2038, 86-2039.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued March 4, 1987.
Decided April 27, 1987.
Benjamin Lipsitz, Baltimore, Md., for Abramson.
Luther C. West, Baltimore, Md., for Harbor Island Marina.
Before WINTER, Chief Judge, WILKINSON, Circuit Judge, and MOTZ, United States District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation.
MOTZ, District Judge.
The issue presented in this case is whether a decree entered in an equity suit in the Circuit Court for Calvert County Maryland, barred a subsequent suit for damages in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. Finding that the decree did have res judicata effect, the District Court entered summary judgment on behalf of the defendant, Harbor Island Marina, Inc. Plaintiff, Neil Abramson, has appealed.
The case arises under a lease which provided that Harbor Island would let certain premises to Abramson to operate a restaurant and bar. The leased premises required substantial repairs, and the lease agreement provided that Abramson was to renovate the property, using materials provided by Harbor Island. The arrangement was less than happy, and, after three weeks, Harbor Island notified Abramson that it wished to terminate the agreement. Abramson responded by instituting suit in the Circuit Court for Calvert County. His prayer for relief included a request for specific performance and an award for damages resulting from the breach of the lease.
The case proceeded to trial before Judge Perry Bowen. Abramson continued to press for specific performance. At the same time he presented some proof of a damage claim in the form of out-of-pocket expenses in the approximate amount of $7,000. At the conclusion of the trial Judge Bowen rendered a bench opinion in which he stated that the lease agreement was so vague that there was “no way on earth” that it could be carried out. Judge Bowen also indicated that the evidence “was very meager in respect to some of ... [the] damages.” Based upon the findings which he made, Judge Bowen entered a decree denying specific performance but ordering that Abramson’s $10,000 deposit held by Harbor Island under the lease be returned. The decree further provided that it was “without prejudice to the right of either party to sue the other for damages in a Court of law.” Several weeks thereafter, Abramson instituted a diversity action against Harbor Island in the District Court, requesting damages for lost profits.
The Calvert County decree — but for its reservation provision — unarguably would have had res judicata effect. Maryland law applies to the question of the preclusive effect of the Maryland decree, see Kutzik v. Young, 730 F.2d 149, 151 (4th Cir.1984), and under Maryland law a final decree in an equity suit generally bars a later action for a monetary claim arising out of the same transaction. See Miller v. Talbott, 239 Md. 382, 392-93, 211 A.2d 741, 747 (1965). Therefore, the question is narrowed to whether or not the reservation provision of the decree limited its preclusive effect.
Maryland law does recognize that under certain circumstances a court, at least a court of equity, may limit the preclusive effect of a. judgment which it enters. See Horowitz v. Horowitz, 175 Md. 16, 27, 199 A. 816, 820 (1938). See generally Restatement Second, Judgments, section 26(l)(b); 18 Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure, section 4413 (1981). However, Abramson has cited no authority to support the proposition that where a plaintiff has prayed for damages as part of his relief and has attempted to prove his damages at trial and where the trial judge has found the proof of some damages insufficient and has entered an award of other damages, the decree entered in that action can, simply by an ipse dixit pronouncement, be limited in its effect. In such a case the actions both of the plaintiff and of the Court are totally inconsistent with the attempted reservation of the right to institute a subsequent suit. To give effect to the reservation provision under these circumstances would totally undermine the sound policies of litigation repose and judicial economy embodied in the doctrine of res judicata.
For these reasons, the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
. Although the parties have not briefed the issue, a substantial question would seem to be presented as to whether, as a matter of law, Abramson would be able to prove lost profits with reasonable certainty. Putting aside the fact that Abramson’s venture was a new business without any established profit history, see, e.g., St. Paul at Chase Corp. v. Manufacturers Life Ins. Co., 262 Md. 192, 244-47, 278 A.2d 12, 37-38 (1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 857, 92 S.Ct. 104, 30 L.Ed.2d 98 (1971), the earning of any profits depended upon his having an enforceable lease. At the least, the decree entered by Judge Bowen would seem to have had a collateral estoppel effect on this issue.
. In the Calvert County proceedings a colloquy occurred between Judge Bowen and Abramson’s counsel in which Judge Bowen expressed his view that Abramson did not have a right to bring a subsequent damages action after having instituted the equity suit. The District Judge inferred from this colloquy that the reservation provision of the decree was not intended to confer independently upon Abramson a right to institute a damages action but simply to preserve his right to bring such an action if Judge Bowen’s view of the law were incorrect. Whether or not this interpretation was correct is a question which this Court need not reach since it finds that the attempted reservation was, in any event, a nullity.
. It is also to be noted that the damages awarded by Judge Bowen — a return of the deposit under the lease — was not ancillary to, but inconsistent with, specific performance. Thus, this is not a case where it might be argued that the damages claimed and awarded were strictly limited to the plaintiffs equitable claim and should therefore not bar an independent action at law.

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