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:
THUMMESS v. VON HOFFMAN. In re VON HOFFMAN.
No. 7107.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
Jan. 15, 1940.
David Goldstein, of Asbury Park, N. J., for appellant.
Matlack & Lautman, of Asbury Park, N. J. (Samuel K. Abrahams, of New York City, of counsel), for appellee.
Before BIDDLE, JONES, and BUF-FINGTON, Circuit Judges.
JONES, Circuit Judge.
Section 39, sub. c of the Bankruptcy Act, as amended by the Act of June 22, 1938, c. 575, Sec. 1, 52 Stat. 858, 11 U.S.C.A. § 67, sub. c, provides, in part here material, as follows: “A person aggrieved by an order of a referee may, within ten days after the entry thereof or within such extended time as the court may for cause shown allow, file with the referee a petition for review of such order by a judge and serve a copy of such petition upon the adverse parties who were represented at the hearing.”
In the present case, the ten day period following the entry of the referee’s order (denying the bankrupt a discharge) expired without a petition for review having been filed or an application for extension of time for such filing having been made. Thereafter, the court below, finding that cause for allowance of extended time for the filing of a review petition ' had been shown, entered an order allowing the bankrupt five days from the date of the court’s order within which to file his petition. From that order, the trustee has appealed, contending that the court was without power to extend the time for the filing of a petition for review, the application therefor not having been made within the ten days following the entry of the referee’s order whereof review was sought. The answer to the question, which the appellant thus raises, necessarily depends upon the meaning of the above quoted provision of Section 39, sub. c, of the Bankruptcy Act.
Prior to the inclusion of Subsection c of Section 39 in the Bankruptcy Act, the procedure for the review of an order of a referee was governed by General Order XXVII of the Supreme Court, 11 U.S.C.A. following section S3. As the General Order did not prescribe any time within which a petition for review might be filed, it was held that, to be timely, such a petition should be filed within a reasonable period following the entry of the referee’s order. American Trust Co. v. W. S. Doig, Inc., 4 Cir., 23 F.2d 398, 399; Crim v. Woodford, 4 Cir., 136 F. 34; In re Grant, D.C., 143 F. 661; In re Foss, C.C., 147 F. 790. In a number of districts, however, the courts adopted local rules providing that a petition for review might be filed, as a matter of right, within a certain number of days (usually ten) following the entry of the referee’s order or thereafter by leave of court upon good cause shown. In re L. & R. Wister & Co., 3 Cir., 237 F. 793; Amick v. Hotz, 8 Cir., 101 F.2d 311; In re Oakland & Belgrade Silver Fox Ranch Co., D.C.Me., 26 F.2d 748; In re Lesher & Son, D.C., E.D., Pa., 176 F. 650; In re J. W. Renshaw’s Sons, D.C., E.D.Ill., 3 F. 2d 75.
Obviously, in the districts where the rule prevailed that a petition for review might be filed within a reasonable time after the entry of an order of a referee, no question could, or did, arise, as to any want of power in a bankruptcy court, to entertain a petition for review, on the ground that an arbitrary period of time had elapsed since the entry of the referee’s order. And, even in the districts where local rules of court prescribed a definite period for the filing of a petition for review or thereafter by leave of court, where proper cause therefor was shown, the courts entertained petitions for review which had not been filed until after the expiration of the definite period allowed for such purpose by local rule of court. In re Oakland & Belgrade Silver Fox Ranch Co., supra; In re Lesher & Son, supra; In re Wister et al., D.C., 232 F. 898; see Roberts Auto & Radio Supply Co. v. Dattle, 3 Cir., 44 F.2d 159, and In re Hopkins, D.C.R.I., 15 F.2d 206. The practice, which had thus developed under General Order XXVII and local rules of court had the force of law. In re L. & R. Wister & Co., supra; In re Lyders, D.C., 16 F.Supp. 213. To work a change in existing law, whereof Congress is deemed to have knowledge, requires plain terms to such effect in an amendatory statute. Thompson v. United States, 246 U.S. 547, 551, 38 S.Ct. 349, 62 L.Ed. 876.
The purpose of Section 39, sub. c, as expressed by the House Committee on Judiciary at the time the proposed amendment was submitted to Congress, was to establish definitely the practice (i. e., on petitions for review) in the interest of certainty and uniformity. This, Congress accomplished by incorporating in the Bankruptcy Act, as Section 39, sub. c, what had been substantially the law in a number of districts under General Order XXVII and local rules of court. The intent of the provision is to place a limitation upon the time within which an aggrieved person can, as a matter of right, file a petition for the review of a referee’s order, still leaving to the discretion of the court the allowance thereafter of permission to file such a petition, accordingly, as cause might be shown. If it had been the legislative intent to restrict the court’s power in extending the time for filing to cases where action looking thereto is taken within the ten days allowed the aggrieved party for the filing of a review petition as a matter of right, then Congress would have plainly so declared, particularly, in view of the fact that the right to review orders of a referee is elsewhere conferred upon the bankruptcy court by a different section of the Bankruptcy Act (Sec. 2(10) of the Act of July 1, 1898, c. 541, 30 Stat. 545, as amended, 11 U.S.C.A. § 11(10). We conclude, therefore, that Section 39, sub., c, was intended to limit the duration of a party’s right to file and not to restrict the court’s power to permit filing.
Under the construction which the appellant urges, the power of the court to extend the time for the filing of a petition for review would in frequent needs prove unavailing. The same justifiable cause which would prevent the filing of a petition within the ten days following the entry of the referee’s order might equally serve to prevent an application within the same period for an extension of the time for filing. Yet, the court would be powerless to relieve against the hardship of that situation if the appellant’s contention were adopted. The injustice of such a result would weigh against the interpretation which the appellant advances, even if the meaning of the amendment were doubtful. Bate Refrigerating Co. v. Sulzberger, 157 U.S. 1, 37, 15 S.Ct. 508, 39 L.Ed. 601; Cumberland Telephone & Tel. Co. v. Kelly, 6 Cir., 160 F. 316, 15 Ann.Cas. 1210.
The appellant bases his argument on court decisions, both federal and state, holding that, where a right of appeal is given by statute, the time limited for the taking of an appeal goes to the jurisdiction of the appellate court and must therefore be complied with strictly. There can be no doubt about that. But, the principle is not in point here. By virtue of Section 2 of the Bankruptcy Act of July 1, 1898, as amended, the jurisdiction of a bankruptcy court attaches upon the filing of a petition in bankruptcy and continues to attend thereafter until the closing of the estate. Acme Harvester Co. v. Beekman Lumber Co., 222 U.S. 300, 306, 32 S.Ct. 96, 56 L.Ed. 208. Thus the statute (Sec. 2, cl. 10) confers the right to a review, and the amendment now under consideration (Sec. 39, sub. c) defines the procedure and prescribes the time within which the proceeding for review shall be commenced, just as did General Order XXVII and local rules of court before the adoption of the amendment. In re L. & R. Wister & Co., supra. No question as to the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court to entertain a petition for review is involved by Section 39, sub. c. The question here is simply one of legislative intent; and, as to that, we are of the opinion that the court below acted within its power when, for cause shown, it extended the time for the filing of a petition for review after the expiration of the ten days following the entry of the order of the referee. As the existence and sufficiency of the cause which moved the court to extend the time for filing is conceded, there is no question of an abuse of discretion by the District Court.
Affirmed.
See report of Mr. Ohandler for House of Representatives Committee • on Judiciary on The Revision of The National Bankruptcy Act, Report No. 1409—75th Congress, 1st Session, p. 11.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 0