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:
Floyd CRENSHAW, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD, Respondent.
No. 86-3422.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
March 3, 1987.
Richard E. Reverman, Martin M. Young & Assoc. Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, James Roy Williams (argued), for petitioner.
Stanley Jay Shuman (argued), General Counsel, Railroad Retirement Bd., Chicago, Ill., for respondent.
Before KEITH, KRUPANSKY and GUY, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Petitioner Floyd Crenshaw appeals the final decision of the Railroad Retirement Board (hereinafter “Board”) denying him a disability annuity under the Railroad Retirement Act of 1974, 45 U.S.C. § 231 et seq. (hereinafter “Act”).
Our jurisdiction to review the decision of the Board derives from Section 8 of the Act, 45 U.S.C. § 231g, which incorporates by reference Section 5(f) of the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act, 45 U.S.C. § 355(f). Section 5(f) pertains to judicial review. Both the Retirement and Insurance Acts are administered by the Board.
Petitioner filed an application for a railroad employee disability annuity under the Act on September 28, 1981. He claimed to be disabled by high blood pressure and the resulting side effects of drowsiness, blurred vision and fatigue. He also maintained that his blood pressure remained uncontrolled despite medication prescribed by a physician. Petitioner had worked until 1980 in various positions with Conrail. His employment stopped because of the high blood pressure symptoms.
Petitioner’s disability claim was first heard by the Board’s initial adjudicating unit, the Bureau of Retirement Claims. The Bureau found that petitioner could perform regular and substantial work despite his condition and denied his claim. He then appealed to the Board’s intermediate appellate unit and a hearing was held before an appeals referee. After new evidence was submitted, the referee sustained the Bureau’s initial decision. Petitioner then appealed to the Board’s highest appellate unit which unanimously affirmed and adopted the decision of the appeals referee after the submission of additional evidence.
Petitioner appeals the Board’s decision, arguing that the appeals referee erred as a matter of law and against the evidence when he decided that petitioner was not precluded from performing all regular employment as a result of his condition. Petitioner also contends that the referee erred when he ignored a psychiatric evaluation revealing evidence of a psychotic reaction to the petitioner’s medical condition. This evaluation, in the petitioner’s view, would have established the existence of a severe mental impairment affecting his ability to work.
We must affirm the decision of the Board if it is supported by substantial evidence and not based on an error of law. Chandler v. United States Railroad Retirement Board, 713 F.2d 188, 189 (6th Cir.1983). If the record supports the Board’s decision, we must accept it without making an independent evaluation of the evidence.
In light of those requirements, we disagree with the petitioner’s contentions. First, there is substantial medical evidence in the record to support the conclusion that complications resulting from the petitioner’s high blood pressure were not, in toto, a permanent physical condition severe enough to preclude employment. The evidence includes two physical and opthamological examinations. These examinations found an ability to do light to moderate work as well as easily remediable hearing and vision impairments. Second, the Board was correct as a matter of law in finding the petitioner not disabled. The Social Security Act regulations on disability, 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.1501-404.1598, are sufficiently analogous to those of the Railroad Retirement Act to be applicable to railroad retirement cases. Chandler, 713 F.2d at 190; Webb v. United States Railroad Retirement Board, 358 F.2d 451 (6th Cir. 1966). Similar to Social Security cases, the appeals referee in this case made specific findings about the petitioner’s condition which precluded him from being found per se disabled. That having been determined, the referee next assessed whether petitioner had a residual functional capacity to work. Under Social Security (and hence Railroad Retirement Act) regulations, the existence of residual functional capacity precludes entitlement to benefits. The referee found that petitioner could work in at least one hundred jobs, given his capacity for light to moderate work. This finding was based on a vocational expert’s testimony. We hold neither finding to be an error of law. Both are required by the regulations applicable to the Railroad Retirement Act.
Finally, the fact that the referee’s decision is in contradiction to a psychiatric evaluation submitted in evidence is not error. The referee may weigh and assess the testimony and reports of physicians. See Ragan v. Finch, 435 F.2d 239 (6th Cir.1970) cert. denied sub nom, 402 U.S. 986, 91 S.Ct. 1685, 29 L.Ed.2d 152 (1971). Where there is a conflict in the evidence, as in this case, it is the referee’s task to strike the proper balance. Id.; LeMaster v. Weinberger, 533 F.2d 337 (6th Cir.1976). In our view, given the substantial evidence in the record which supports a finding of ineligibility for benefits, the referee struck the proper balance in this case.
Accordingly, upon consideration of the briefs and the entire record, we AFFIRM the decision of the Railroad Retirement Board adopting the findings of the referee.

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