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:
SAN FRANCISCO REAL ESTATE INVESTORS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. J.A. JONES CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, Harold A. Berry & Associates, Harold A. Berry, Hixson, Architects/Engineers, Hixson, Tarter & Merkel, and Louis W. Hixson, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 81-3712.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Argued Dec. 1, 1982.
Decided April 6, 1983.
Thomas Y. Allman (argued), Kim K. Burke, Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, Cincinnati, Ohio, for plaintiff-appellant.
Gary L. Herfel (argued), Cincinnati, Ohio, for defendants-appellees.
James J. Montgomery, Bloom & Greene Co., L.P.A., Cincinnati, Ohio, for Berry.
W. Roger Fry, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Hixson.
Before KRUPANSKY and WELLFORD, Circuit Judges, and PHILLIPS, Senior Circuit Judge.
PER CURIAM.
Plaintiff-appellant seeks damages for costs it incurred to repair a parking deck at a building in Cincinnati it owns which appellees planned and constructed as architect and builder-contractor.
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio granted summary judgment for the appellees. 524 F.Supp. 768 (S.D.Ohio 1981). Applying Ohio law, the District Court ruled that since appellant was a subsequent purchaser of the property and improvements in question — not the original vendee — it was not in privity of contract with any of the appellees, and thus could not recover from them. We affirm.
The only question before this Court is whether the District Court proper- • ly construed Ohio law in this diversity action. We agree with the District Court’s well-reasoned conclusion that Insurance Co. of North America v. Bonnie Built Homes, 64 Ohio St.2d 269, 416 N.E.2d 623 (1980), compels the instant result.
In Bonnie Built Homes, a purchaser of residential property from its original owner discovered, after having lived in the house for approximately one year, that the roof leaked badly. The repairs to the roof cost some $5,500. While noting that under Mitchem v. Johnson, 7 Ohio St.2d 66, 218 N.E.2d 594 (1966), an original vendee can recover for failure of the builder-vendor to construct a real-property structure in a workmanlike manner, the Ohio Supreme Court made it clear that a subsequent purchaser cannot recover against the builder-vendor because “privity of contract is a necessary element of [such] an action.” Insurance Co. of North America v. Bonnie Built Homes, 416 N.E.2d at 624. The Ohio court in Bonnie Built Homes then held “the duty of the builder-vendor to build a structure in a workmanlike manner is a duty arising out of the contract of sale and not out of a general duty owed to the public at large.” Id. The court recognized that some jurisdictions do not follow the privity of contract rule, applicable in Ohio.
Appellant’s argument that Bonnie Built Homes should not apply in the instant case is unavailing. In particular, appellant suggests that since Bonnie Built Homes involved residential property, the holding should not apply to commercial real estate. It is more logical, however, to suggest that special protection should be afforded the consumer in a residential property transaction, than a presumably sophisticated real estate investor, such as appellant, who is at least theoretically better able to evaluate blueprints and other specifications before purchasing property.
The Ohio rule of Bonnie Built Homes appears to apply not only to an action against the builder, but to one against the architect and any subcontractors as well. If privity is a requisite element of a cause of action against a builder, the same logic inescapably applies to these other parties.
The decision of the district court is affirmed.
. We note that the parties stipulated in a pretrial order that Ohio law applies in this action. San Francisco Real Estate Investors v. J.A. Jones Construction Co., 524 F.Supp. 768, 769 (S.D.Ohio 1981). See Erie Railroad v. Thompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938).
. The function of this court in the instant case is to apply the law of the state which governs the suit, not to take a position regarding the advisability or fairness of the rule applied.
. This in no way suggests that such a rule also applies to members of the general public who use a particular structure. See San Francisco Real Estate Investors v. J.A. Jones Construction Co., 524 F.Supp. at 770 n. 1.

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