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:
CROTHERS v. SOPER et al. In re STEELE.
(Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
January 12, 1926.)
No. 2421.
Bankruptcy 184(2)— Claim under mortgage withheld from record, so as not to affect mortgagor’s credit, properly expunged and disallowed.
Where mortgage was withheld from record, so as not to affect mortgagor’s credit, claim thereunder was properly disallowed and expunged from record of trustee in bankruptcy.
Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore, in Bankruptcy.
In the matter of the bankruptcy of J ames Groome Steele. The claim of Omar D. Crothers was disallowed and expunged from the record of Morris A. Soper and others, trustees, by the referee and the District Court, and claimant appeals.
Affirmed.
Isaac L. Straus, of Baltimore, Md., for appellant.
William J. Bratton and Albert D. Mae-key, both of Elkton, Md. (Clarence K. Bowie and Bowie & Clark, all of Baltimore, Md., on the brief), for appellees.
Before WADDILL and PARKER, Circuit Judges, and WATKINS, District Judge.
PER CURIAM.
Having regard to the peculiar facts and circumstances of this ease, the relations existing between the mortgagor and the mortgagee, especially that the contested mortgage for $5,225, assuming the same to have been given originally for a valid consideration and effective as between the parties, was by understanding, if not by agreement, withheld from the record, so as not to affect the mortgagor’s credit, the conclusion of the court is that the action of the District Judge and the referee, expunging and disallowing the said claim from the list of those upon the trustee’s record, should be approved and affirmed. We are led to this view, moreover, by the fact that the case seems to be ruled by those of National Bank of Athens v. Shackelford, 36 S. Ct. 17, 239 U. S. 81, 60 L. Ed. 158 (in the Circuit Court of Appeals, 208 F. 677, 678, 125 C. C. A. 575); In re Lamie Chemical Co. (C. C. A.) 296 F. 24, 28; Millikin v. Second National Bank, 206 F. 14, 19, 124 C. C. A. 148 (both decisions of this court).
Affirmed.

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