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:
WOOD et al. v. FRANKLIN LIFE INS. CO.
(Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
February 3, 1927.)
No. 4867.
1. Mortgages <§=>426 — Mortgagor, mortgagee, and persons acquiring interest subsequent to mortgage are only proper parties to foreclosure suit.
Only proper ■ parties to suit to foreclose mortgage are mortgagor, mortgagee, and those whose interests have been acquired subsequently to date of mortgage.
2. Mortgages <§=>426 — Persons claiming title by adverse possession superior to mortgagor’s title are not proper parties to foreclosure suit.
Parties claiming title superior to lien of mortgage, based on possession adverse to mortgagor for statutory period of limitations, are not proper parties to foreclosure suit.
3. ’ Estoppel <§=>68(2) — Defendants held estopped from asserting that they were necessary parties to prior foreclosure suit, contrary to position taken by them in such suit.
Where suit to foreclose mortgage was dismissed as to persons who by answer asserted title by adverse possession superior to lien of mortgage, such persons could not, in subsequent action against them for possession of same land, take an inconsistent position and assert that they were necessary parties to foreclosure suit, and that, being so, they had not lost their equity of redemption.
In Error to the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Texas; Du Yal West, Judge.
Action by the Franklin Life Insurance Company against Ellington F. Wood and another. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendants bring error.
Affirmed.
W. M. Sleeper, of Waco, Tex. (S. D. Snodgrass, of Temple, Tex., and E. Y. Boynton and Sleeper, Boynton & Kendall, all of Waco, Tex., on the brief), for plaintiffs in error.
Eugene P. Locke, of Dallas, Tex. (Locke, Locke, Stroud & Randolph, of Dallas, Tex., on the brief), for defendant in error.
Before WALKER, BRYAN, and FOSTER, Circuit Judges.
BRYAN, Circuit Judge.
The Franklin Life Insurance Company brought suit and recovered judgment for the possession of a tract of land. It traced its title through a deed from defendants, Ellington F. Wood and Mary Ethel Wood, his wife, and the foreclosure of a mortgage executed by their grantee, Willie B. Wood. Defendants were made parties in the foreclosure suit, on the theory that they claimed an interest inferior to the lien of the mortgage, but were dismissed out of that suit upon the filing of their answer, which contained averments to the effect that they were neither necessary nor proper parties, and were improperly joined, because they claimed title superior to the lien of the mortgage, and had been in actual possession, claiming title adversely to the mortgagor for the statutory period of limitations.
The defense set up in the present suit is that defendants were necessary parties to the foreclosure suit, and, being so, they have not yet lost their equity of redemption, and are entitled to remain in possession of the land until it is taken by suit against them. It is unnecessary to state the circumstances under which the mortgage was given, as defendants concede that it constitutes a valid lien, binding upon them.
The only proper parties to a suit- to foreclose a mortgage are the mortgagor, mortgagee, and those whose interests have been acquired subsequently to the date of the mortgage. Faubion v. Rogers, 66 Tex. 472, 1 S. W. 166. If the answer of defendants in the foreclosure suit was true, their title was superior to the lien of the mortgage, and they were not proper parties. Plaintiff proceeded on the theory that the answer was true. Defendants were thereafter estopped to take an inconsistent position, that would work an in'jury to the plaintiff, as would be the ease if it were forced to bring a new suit to settle a right that was actually involved in its original, foreclosure suit.
The judgment is 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: 0