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:
Edward Lee McLALLEN, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES MARSHAL, WESTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI, et al., Appellee.
No. 20256.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Jan. 13, 1971.
Ronald M. Sokol, Kansas City, Mo., on brief for appellant.
Bert C. Hum, U. S. Atty., and Frederick O. Griffin, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., Kansas City, Mo., on brief for appellee.
Before MATTHES, Chief Judge, and LAY and BRIGHT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
On April 10, 1964, the United States, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4163, mandatorily released Edward Lee McLallen from the Leavenworth Penitentiary with 445 days remaining on his sentence for a Dyer Act violation. Under the statute, such a mandatorily released prisoner acquires the same status as that of a parolee until the expiration of his prison term less 180 days. 18 U.S.C. § 4164. While on such status as a parolee, Mc-Lallen was arrested for second-degree burglary in the State of Missouri. Based on this arrest, the United States Board of Parole issued a warrant directed to any proper United States officer to take McLallen into custody as a parole violator. Upon instructions from the Board of Parole, Respondent United States Marshal, holding the said warrant, withheld its execution, but lodged a detainer with Missouri state officials charged with holding custody of the petitioner.
McLallen filed a petition for habeas corpus in the federal district court for the Western District of Missouri seeking to invalidate the detainer. He contended that the delay in executing the warrant, thereby necessarily delaying disposition of the parole violator claim, violated his constitutional right to due process. The district court construed the petition as one for declaratory relief and dismissed the proceedings, holding that the delay in execution did not strip the warrant of legal validity.
McLallen appeals in forma pauperis from the district court decision. He delineates the issue on appeal in the following language:
On appeal there is no contention that the Board of Paroles may not revoke a mandatory release for commission of a crime while in mandatory release status. Nor is there any contention that statutory good time may not be revoked for violation of mandatory release. Nor is it contended that the Board of Paroles may not, within its discretion, determine that the remaining federal time is to be served consecutively to the state incarceration. What is contended is that it is arbitrary, unreasonable and a violation of due process of law for the Board of Paroles or some employee or agent thereof to refuse and fail to reach a determination, particularly after request, as to whether there has been a violation; whether there are factors in mitigation; whether the mandatory releasee is still a good “parole risk”; whether the violation, if established, is to be ignored or the releasee rein-carcerated, or whether his incarceration is to be served concurrently with, or consecutive to, his state sentence.
Petitioner’s claims of constitutional deprivation are similar to those asserted by the appellant, and rejected by us, in Chaney v. Ciccone, 427 F.2d 363 (8th Cir. 1970). See also Petition of Castaldi, 428 F.2d 371 (8th Cir. 1970); Hash v. Henderson, 385 F.2d 475 (8th Cir. 1967). In Chaney, supra, we held it a permissible practice for the Board of Parole to lodge a detainer against a parole violator and to delay the execution of a parole violator’s warrant until the conclusion of the state sentence then being served by the alleged violator. We consider this court’s decision in Chaney, supra, as dispositive of this case.
Affirmed.

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