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:
George E. JACKSON et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. TRANS WORLD AIRLINES, INC. and Air Line Pilots Association, International, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 348, Docket 35517.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Argued Feb. 17, 1972.
Decided March 20, 1972.
Asher W. Schwartz, New York City (O’Donnell & Schwartz, New York City, on brief), for appellants.
Robert L. Carter, New York City (Po-letti, Freidin, Prashker, Feldman & Gartner, Herbert Prashker and Richard Lynton, New York City, on brief), for appellee Trans World Airlines, Inc.
Stephen B. Moldof, New York City (Cohen, Weiss & Simon and Robert S. Savelson, New York City, on brief), for appellee Air Line Pilots Assn., International.
Before FEINBERG and TIMBERS, Circuit Judges, and THOMSEN, District Judge.
Of the District of Maryland, sitting by designation.
. “10.1 The Board of Directors reserves the right at any time and from time to time, and retroactively if deemed necessary or appropriate to meet the requirements of Sections 401(a) or 501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 195.4 and of any similar provisions of subsequent revenue laws or the rules and regulations from time to time in effect under any of such laws or to conform with governmental regulations or other policies, to modify or amend in whole or in part any or all of the provisions of the Plan; ,!; :!: *
“10.2 The Board of Directors may terminate the Plan as to any Company at any time and for any reason. * * *
“11.1 This Plan shall not be deemed to constitute a contract between the Company and any Employee or other person in the employ of the Company nor shall anything herein contained be deemed to give any employee or other person in the employ of the Company any right to interfere with the right of the Company to discharge any Employee or such other person at any time and to treat him without regard
to the effect which such treatment might have upon him as a Member of the Plan.”
THOMSEN, District Judge:
Appellants, plaintiffs below, senior flight engineers employed by defendant Trans World Airlines, Inc. (TWA), appeal from a summary judgment in favor of defendants TWA and Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA). They challenge two related provisions in a collective bargaining agreement between TWA and ALPA, which appellants contend deprived them of vested rights in a retirement plan.
On June 1, 1950, TWA initiated a retirement plan, financed by voluntary contributions of the flight engineers and supplemental contributions by TWA. The Flight Engineers International Association (FEIA), which represented the flight engineers at that time, had no role in negotiating the original plan or any modifications thereof until 1965.
On March 19, 1968, following a representation election under the Railway Labor Act, ALPA succeeded FEIA as the certified representative of the flight engineers. Shortly thereafter ALPA and TWA negotiated and executed a collective bargaining agreement, dated May 13, 1968, which made several changes in the retirement plan for the flight engineers, effective March 1, 1968.
Before the 1968 agreement the retirement plan had contained the following provision:
“5.5. A Member, while still in Service, may request that his Accumulated Contributions be paid to him. Upon such payment, all of his Retirement Income shall be cancelled, he shall cease to be a Member and shall not be eligible to again become a Member.”
Other relevant provisions are set out in the margin.
The TWA-ALPA agreement of May 13, 1968, deleted Article 5.5, quoted above, and added the following clause, to which appellants object.
“Effective on and after March 1, 1968 a Flight Engineer shall not be permitted to withdraw any contributions which he has made to this Plan while such Flight Engineer is in the employ of TWA.”
Appellants contend that ALP A and TWA thereby breached their duty to bargain in good faith, without hostile discrimination against any group. See Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R.R., 323 U.S. 192, 65 S.Ct. 226, 89 L.Ed. 173 (1944). We agree with the district court that no such breach occurred. All senior flight engineers in appellants’ classification were treated alike, and the same restriction on withdrawals was applied to the pilots represented by ALPA. The new agreement provided for additional benefits for flight engineers and their plan will be more costly to TWA. Something akin to factual malice is necessary to establish "a breach of the duty of fair representation. Cunningham v. Erie Railroad Co., 266 F.2d 411, 417 (2 Cir. 1959). Absent a showing of “hostile discrimination”, there is no breach of the duty of fair representation merely because the negotiated agreement fails to satisfy all persons represented by the union. Steele, supra; Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U.S. 330, 337-338, 73 S.Ct. 681, 97 L.Ed. 1048 (1953).
The gravamen of appellants’ argument on appeal is that their right to withdraw their own contributions from the retirement plan without terminating their employment rights could not lawfully be disturbed by an amendment to the plan, particularly by an amendment applied retroactively.
Since no appellant or anyone similarly situated sought to withdraw this contributions between March 1, 1968 and May 13, 1968, the question of retroactive application is moot. But it was not necessary for an appellant to actually request that his accumulated contributions be paid to him, and thus risk his employment status, before obtaining from the court a determination of the validity of the elimination of Article 5.5 from the plan. Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U.S. 270, 273, 61 S.Ct. 510, 85 L.Ed. 826 (1941) ; Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U.S. 103, 108, 89 S.Ct. 956, 22 L.Ed.2d 113 (1969); International Longshoremen’s Association v. Seatrain Lines, Inc., 326 F.2d 916, 918 (2 Cir. 1964).
We do not agree with appellants’ contention that the elimination of Article 5.5 constituted a breach of contract by TWA. The provisions of the plan quoted in note 3 in the margin reserved to TWA the right to modify or terminate the plan, so long as the funds are devoted to the benefit of the members. See Finnell v. Cramet, Inc., 289 F.2d 409, 413 (6 Cir. 1961), and Genevese v. Martin-Marietta Corp., 312 F. Supp. 1186, 1190 (E.D.Pa.1969). Nor did the elimination of the right of withdrawal deprive appellants of any vested property right in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Retirement and pension plans are recognized as mandatory subjects of the collective bargaining process. Elgin Joliet & Eastern Ry. Co. v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 302 F.2d 540 (7 Cir. 1962), cert. den. 371 U.S. 823, 83 S.Ct. 42, 9 L.Ed.2d 63 (1962). Such a plan can be altered prior to the vesting of the employees’ rights under the plan. See Roberts v. Lehigh & New England Ry. Co., 323 F. 2d 219 (3 Cir. 1963); Genevese v. Martin-Marietta, supra. In the present case no appellant has yet qualified for retirement benefits. Their right to withdraw contributions was, by the terms of the retirement plan and the TWA-FEIA agreement in effect before May 1968, clearly subject to modification.
For the reasons stated above, the judgment in favor of defendants is
Affirmed.
. Appellants seek to make this a class action on behalf of all flight engineers in the A and A-l class employed by TWA who were members of the retirement plan prior to May 13, 1968. In deciding this appeal, we make no determination as to this issue.
. 45 U.S.C. §§ 151, 152, Third and Ninth.

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: 0