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:
WEXLER v. MARYLAND STATE FAIR, Inc., et al.
No. 5663.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Nov. 22, 1947.
Richard J. Connor, of Washington, D. C. (Gallagher, Oshermann, Connor and Bútler, of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellant.
Eben J. D. Cross and J. Nicholas Shriver, Jr., both of Baltimore, Md. (James J. Lindsay, Lawrence Perin, Robert H. Archer and John W. Farrell, all of Baltimore, Md., on the brief), for appellees.
Before PARKER, SOPER and DOBIE, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
This is an appeal from a summary judgment for the defendants entered upon the pleadings and affidavits in an action to recover the winner’s purse in a horse race. The defendants alleged that, although the horse ran first in the race, the purse was not paid because, by order of the Maryland Racing Commission, the horse had been disqualified and the purse had been distributed, upon a realignment of the horses in the race. Affidavits were offered by defendants supporting these allegations and counter-affidavits by plaintiff, the owner of the horse, showing that, following a decision of the Court of Appeals of Maryland in a similar case, Mahoney v. Byers, 186 Md. -, 48 A.2d 600, a letter had been written by the Commission to the trainer of the horse in question stating that, in view of the decision holding invalid the provisions of the rule under which the trainer’s license was revoked, the license was being restored and the Commission was directing that any purses withheld from him be immediately paid. Plaintiff contends that this language referred to the purse sued for in the action.
We think that there are uncertainties of fact in this case which will have to be determined after a hearing at which the parties will be offered an opportunity to present evidence in support of their contentions ; and that there was error in entering summary judgment at the present stage of the proceedings. The issues arising upon the pleadings and affidavits are: (1) Whether there was a valid order that the horse be disqualified, (2) whether there was a revocation of this order, and (3) whether, in any event, plaintiff was precluded from suing for the purse under the circumstances of the case. Among the questions that would seem to arise with respect to the determination of these issues are the following: (1) whether the Racing Commis' sion had authority under the facts of the case to order that the horse be disqualified; (2) whether the said order, if issued by properly constituted authority, was invalid because of the failure to accord the owner of the horse a hearing after due notice; (3) whether, if the order was invalid, the owner on that account may recover in this case; (4) whether if the order was invalid the plaintiff had such timely notice thereof as to enable him by applying to the court for an injunction to prevent the distribution of the purse and whether in such contingency his failure to take such action bars any recovery in this case; (5) whether the plaintiff had notice of the realignment of the horses and the distribution of the purse to another person and acquiesced therein; and (6) whether the letter from the Racing Commission to the trainer of the horse, on which the plaintiff relies, referred to the winner’s purse and amounted to a revocation of the order of the Racing Commission by which the horse was originally disqualified, and if so, whether the revocation justifies a recovery by the plaintiff in this case.
There may be other questions; but there is no point in discussing them in advance of the taking of evidence. It is sufficient that questions of fact and questions of law which they involve should be determined before judgment is entered. We indicate no opinion as to any fact or any conclusion of law in the case.
Reversed and remanded.

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