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:
NATIONWIDE MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Mary Grace WILLENBRINK, Administratrix for the Estate of Paul J. Willenbrink, III; Charles T. Walz, Jr.; Larry D. Tincher; and Mary L. Lippert, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 90-5604.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued Dec. 6, 1990.
Decided Jan. 22, 1991.
Wayne J. Carroll (argued), Edward H. Bartenstein, MacKenzie & Peden, Louisville, Ky., for plaintiff-appellant.
Brian K. Darling (argued), Louisville, Ky., Douglas E. Miller, Miller & Durham, Radcliff, Ky., George M. Streckfus (argued), Segal & Shanks, Louisville, Ky., for defendants-appellees.
Before MERRITT, Chief Judge, JONES, Circuit Judge and WELLFORD, Senior Circuit Judge.
The Honorable Harry W. Wellford assumed senior status on January 21, 1991.
MERRITT, Chief Judge.
Based on the concerns set out in our earlier decisions in Grand Trunk Western Railroad v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 746 F.2d 323 (6th Cir.1984), Allstate Insurance Co. v. Mercier, 913 F.2d 273 (6th Cir.1990), and Omaha Property and Casualty Co. v. Johnson, 923 F.2d 464 (6th Cir.1991), we remand this diversity insurance coverage case seeking declaratory judgment. The District Court decided the coverage question in favor of the insurance carrier. The District Court on remand should specifically consider whether its exercise of discretion in granting a declaratory judgment is appropriate in this case.
The Administratrix of the estate of Paul J. Willenbrink, III sued Mary L. Lippert, Charles Walz and Larry Tincher in a state court in Kentucky for damages resulting from personal injury and death. On September 14, 1989, the Kentucky state court dismissed Nationwide, defendant Lippert’s insuror, as a defendant in the state court negligence action; but the state court's decision that Nationwide was not a proper defendant in the tort action was not a refusal to hear the serious coverage question presented under the policy issued by Nationwide to Lippert. The order dismissing Nationwide “pass[ed] all issues of coverage to the case on its merits, to be litigated after the liability action is tried.” The parties have now supplied the state court order which we may notice judicially. See Advisory Notes, Rule 201, Fed.R.Evid.
Rather than wait for the state court to hear the coverage question in the order which the state judge determined to be appropriate, Nationwide filed a declaratory judgment action in U.S. District Court on September 25, 1989, naming all parties in the state court action as defendants. The coverage question presented in both the state and the federal courts is one of first impression under Kentucky law.
The Declaratory Judgment Act grants the district courts a discretion to entertain cases such as this one; however, this discretion is guided by certain principles. Omaha Property and Casualty Insurance Co. v. Johnson, 923 F.2d 464 (6th Cir.1991); Allstate Insurance Co. v. Mercier, 913 F.2d 273 (6th Cir.1990); Grand Trunk Western Railroad v. Consolidated Rail Corporation, 746 F.2d 323 (6th Cir. 1984); American Home Assurance Co. v. Evans, 791 F.2d 61 (6th Cir.1986); Manley, Bennett, McDonald & Co. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co., 791 F.2d 460 (6th Cir.1986). This Court reviews the exercise of such discretion de novo, applying a general standard involving five considerations. The general standard is whether “the judgment will serve a useful purpose in clarifying and settling the legal relations in issue,” and whether “it will terminate and afford relief from the uncertainty, insecurity, and controversy giving rise to the proceeding.” Allstate, 913 F.2d at 277; Grand Trunk, 746 F.2d at 326. Five factors are applied to determine whether such a result can be achieved:
(1) whether the judgment would settle the controversy;
(2) whether the declaratory judgment would serve a useful purpose in clarifying the legal relations at issue;
(3) whether the declaratory remedy is being used merely for the purpose of “procedural fencing” or “to provide an arena for a race for res judicata
(4) whether the use of a declaratory action would increase friction between our federal and state courts and improperly encroach on state jurisdiction, and
(5) whether there is an alternative remedy that is better or more effective.
Allstate, 913 F.2d at 277; Grand Trunk, 746 F.2d at 326. These considerations follow the approach of the Supreme Court in similar cases. In Green v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 106 S.Ct. 423, 88 L.Ed.2d 371 (1985), the Court noted that whether a federal court should entertain such cases is a matter of discretion based on considerations of “equity, comity and federalism,” the uncertain effect of res judicata and the tendency of such decisions to be a “partial end run” around the authority of state courts to adjudicate claims falling within their jurisdiction. Id. at 72-73, 106 S.Ct. at 427-28.
In this case, neither party brought to the attention of the District Court the above-discussed line of authority from this Court and the Supreme Court, nor is it apparent from the record that the District Court was informed that the state court had expressly reserved the coverage question to a later date. In light of these omissions and the duty of comity owed by federal courts to the state courts in our federalist system of independent courts of equal dignity, the District Court should specifically address the question of the exercise of its discretion under the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201.
Accordingly, we remand this matter to the District Court for reconsideration.

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