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:
STATE STREET TRUST CO. v. MUSKOGEE ELECTRIC TRACTION CO. et al.
No. 4547.
United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.
May 15, 1953.
Rehearing Denied June 15, 1953.
Pickett, Circuit Judge, dissented.
C. A. Ambrister, Muskogee, Old., and George B. Rowell, Boston, Mass., for appellant.
W. R. Banker, Muskogee, Okl. (A. Camp Bonds and Andrew Wilcoxen, Muskogee, Old., on the brief), for appellees.
Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and MURRAH and PICKETT, Circuit Judges.
MURRAH, Circuit Judge.
The sole question presented by this appeal is whether the intentional destruction of negotiable instruments by the holder, believing them to be valueless, works a cancellation and discharge of the debt evidenced thereby. The facts are not in dispute.
In October 1939, Florence K. Twombly was the owner of sixteen bonds of a series issued May 1, 1912, by the Muskogee Electric Traction Company. At that time the bonds had long since been i,n default of both principal and interest, and being advised by a representative of the State Street Trust Company that they were valueless, she burned them. Ten years later, while the Traction Company was in bankruptcy for reorganization, the trust officer for the State Street Trust Company learned that the bonds had some value, whereupon he wrote to the Traction Company advising them of the destruction of the bonds by Mrs. Twombly while under the impression they were worthless, and inquired what steps could be taken to put the bonds in line for payment. He was informed by the Trustee for the Traction Company that he did not know of any steps for presenting a claim for the lost or destroyed certificates. Under the confirmed plan of reorganization, the bonds of this series were exchangeable for the sum of $400.00 in cash and $600.00 in preferred stock upon their surrender to the designated depository. The Trust Company made application and demand for the payment of the bonds in accordance with the plan of reorganization, tendering to the designated depository an' indemnity bond against wrongful payment. When the depository refused to exchange the bonds, in the absence of an order of the court decreeing Mrs. Twombly to be the rightful owner, and directing payment to her, this suit was instituted to recover the value of the bonds under the plan of reorganization. Since the institution of the suit, the State Street Trust Company has been substituted as conservator of Florence Twombly’s estate.
The trial court held that “when the plaintiff intentionally destroyed or burned the bonds in question, she thereby cancelled the debt created or ■ represented by the instrument”; that “at least, a presumption of an intention to cancel the indebtedness arises from the intentional destruction of the instruments and the plaintiff did not sustain the burden of proof to overcome this presumption.” This appeal is from a judgment for the Traction Company.
Conceding the uniform rule, applicable in Oklahoma, that a negotiable instrument is discharged “by the intentional cancellation thereof by the holder”, 48 O.S.A. § 261, subd. 3, the appellant strenuously denies that the intentional physical destruction of the bonds in these circumstances worked a cancellation or discharge of the debt. It is said that to effect the discharge of the debt, the physical destruction of the negotiable instrument must be accompanied by an intention to forgive, and that the mere- physical destruction of the bonds, believing them to be worthless, is no evidence of such in-, tention.
It is. undoubtedly true that there can be no discharge by cancellation without an intent to wipe out or nullify the obligation, for an unintentional or mistaken cancellation is inoperative. 48 O.S.A. § 265. But, it has been uniformly held that intentional destruction of a negotiable instrument is the highest evidence of an intention to discharge and cancel the debt represented thereby. Larkin v. Hardenbrook, 90 N.Y. 333, 43 Am.Rep. 176; 8 Am.Jur.Sec. 787, p. 442. Most, if not all, of the cases which sustain the discharge of the debt by physical destruction of the evidence, involve a gratuitous or beneficent renunciation, usually amounting to a gift. Norton v. Smith, 130 Me. 58, 153 A. 886; Darland v. Taylor, 52 Iowa 503, 3 N.W. 510; Wilkins v. Skoglund, 127 Neb. 589, 256 N.W. 31; McDonald v. Loomis, 233 Mich. 174, 206 N.W. 348; Sullivan v. Shea, 32 Cal.App. 369, 162 P. 925; Henson v. Henson, 151 Tenn. 137, 268 S.W. 378, 37 A.L.R. 1131.
But, discharge by intentional cancellation under Section 261, Title 48 O.S.A., need not rise to the dignity or meet the requirements of an unconditional renunciation under Section 264. See Wilkins v. Skoglund, supra. In determining whether there has been an intentional cancellation, “The purpose or intent of the holder beyond intent to destroy his evidence of indebtedness is immaterial.” This rule is derived from the concept that the intentional destruction of a note or other security destroys the rights of action upon it. McDonald v. Loomis, supra. To hold that an intentional destruction does not work a discharge in the absence of a gratuitous or beneficent motive would greatly weaken, if not nullify, the explicit words of the statute.
Clearly, by the intentional destruction of the bonds, Mrs. Twombly did not thereby intend to forgive the obligation in the sense of conferring a gratuity or bounty upon the Traction Company. Her intentional destruction of these bonds was nevertheless the highest evidence of her intention to forgive the obligation, at least in the sense of forgetting it or wiping it out.
This evidence can be overcome by showing to the satisfaction of the trier of the facts that the bonds were destroyed unintentionally or under mistake within the meaning of Section 265. The court held, and there can be no doubt, that Mrs. Twom-bly actually intended to burn these particular bonds. The appellant earnestly contends, however, that the destruction of the bonds was a mistake within the meaning of the statute and therefore inoperative.
Taken in its ordinary accepted meaning, and given its full legal signifi-•canee, mistake means some unintentional act, omission or error arising from ignorance, surprise, imposition or misplaced confidence. 27 Words & Phrases, page 365. And, as used in Section 265, it may be one ■of law as well as fact. Fitzgerald v. Nelson, 159 Or. 264, 79 P.2d 254; Gleason v. Brown, 129 Wash. 196, 224 P. 930; In re Philpott’s Estate, 169 Iowa 555, 151 N.W. 825. But in either event, the burden of proof lies with the party relying upon mistake to avoid cancellation. Section 265. Clarendon County, S.C. v. Curtis, 4 Cir., 46 F.2d 888; Morris v. Reyman, 55 Ind. App. 112, 103 N.E. 423; Drake Lumber Co. v. Semple, 100 Fla. 1757, 130 So. 577, 75 A. L.R. 687.
There is no contention that the destruction was induced in any way by the maker or its agent. They were admittedly destroyed upon the advice of the holder’s financial agent, appellant here. The appellant’s only claim to excusable mistake is that she destroyed the bonds under the mistaken belief that they were worthless. There is no evidence even tending to show that Mrs. Twombly was mistaken, misled ■or ignorant of the facts bearing upon the value of the bonds at the time she destroyed them. They had been in default of principal and interest for approximately six years, and her decision that they were worthless was prompted by advice given her in good faith and upon which she had a right to rely. If subsequent and unforeseen events disproved the wisdom of that advice and decision, it cannot now form the legal or factual basis for the repudiation of a consummated act of forgiveness. The mistake must be judged in light of the facts and the law as they existed when the bonds were actually destroyed with the intention of forgetting and wiping out the debt.
This is not a claim asserted in a bankruptcy court where the broad equitable powers of the court may be brought into play in the allowance or disallowance of claims against the estate. Pepper v. Litton, 308 U.S. 295, 60 S.Ct. 238, 84 L.Ed. 281; Prudence Realization Corp. v. Geist, 316 U.S. 89, 62 S.Ct. 978, 86 L.Ed. 1293. Nor is it an action for money had and received as in Ryan v. Spaniol, 10 Cir., 193 F.2d 551. It is a suit upon a negotiable instrument, as to which the policy of the law requires strict adherence to the rules of the Law Merchant.
The judgment is not clearly erroneous and it is affirmed.

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