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:
R. HOE & CO., Inc., et al. v. GOSS PRINTING PRESS CO.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
March 22, 1929.
No. 46.
For the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals, see 30 F.(2d) 271.
John D. Morgan, of New York City, for the motion.
James J. Kennedy, of New York City, opposed.
Before MANTON, L. HAND, and AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judges.
PEE CUEIAM.
We held in Page Machine Co. v. Dow, Jones & Co., 168 F. 703, that we would not require a patentee, whose claims we had held valid, to disclaim a claim found invalid by the Circuit Court. At that time the plaintiff had no appeal from an interlocutory decree of invalidity, and the effect of requiring a disclaimer was to make the decision of the Circuit Court final without review by us. If the patentee had had the appeal which he now has, the result need not have been the same, as Judge Westenhaver pointed out in Ensten v. Rich-Sampliner Co. (D. C.) 13 F.(2d) 132. It is the practice of the Sixth and Seventh Circuits to require disclaimer of those claims held invalid in the Circuit Court of Appeals as a condition of proceeding upon the valid claims. Herman v. Youngstown (C. C. A.) 191 F. 579, 587; Liquid Carbonic Co. v. Gilchrist Co. (C. C. A.) 253 F. 54; Higgin Mfg. Co. v. Watson (C. C. A.) 263 F. 378, 387; Excelsior, etc., Co. v. Williamson Heater Co. (C. C. A.) 269 F. 614, 619. We can see no distinction, whether a decree holding some of the claims invalid is affirmed, or this court in part reverses a decree holding them all valid. In each case the time is extended till the decision on appeal.
If this court’s decision were final, such a rule would be a corollary of O’Reilly v. Morse, 15 How. 62, 14 L. Ed. 601, Seymour v. McCormick, 19 How. 96, 15 L. Ed. 557, and Gage v. Herring, 107 U. S. 640, 2 S. Ct. 819, 27 L. Ed. 601. However, it is not final, if the Supreme Court chooses to grant certiorari. In that event, a disclaimer would destroy the patentee’s right to a review of our holding as to invalidity. The patentee should not be put to such a hazard, but should be as free to withhold his disclaimer, until his appeal to the Supreme Court is decided, as he is upon appeal to this court from the decree of the District Court.
The plaintiff at bar goes further, however, arguing that, even after denial of an application for Certiorari, the patentee should not be obliged to disclaim. It argues that the Circuit Court of Appeals of another circuit might disagree with our ruling, and the Supreme Court would then take the ease on certiorari and might declare the claims valid. A disclaimer would merely destroy this right, though the defendant is protected forever by its decree, and really has no interest in the disclaimer at all. While we acknowledge the difficulty and the possibility, it appears to us that so to extend the patentee’s time might result in avoiding the statute altogether. The patentee may not sue-again, or, if he does, the result may be the-same. It does not follow, because two Circuit Courts of Appeals have held the same-way, that a third will not disagree. Must the patentee disclaim at the conclusion of the-second suit, or may he wait until all nine circuits have passed upon his claims? The-question is at best of seasonable action, and-in practice there must be some end, short of exhausting all conceivable remedies. When the patent has once passed through all the courts then available, the statute should have its effect; else the putatively invalid claims-may remain as scarecrows, preserved against the bare possibility that at some future time-they may come to life.
The mandate will therefore be recalled- and amended, so as to require the plaintiff to-file a disclaimer within 30 days after the-time expires within which to petition for certiorari, or, if it does so petition, then within-30 days after denial, if it is denied, or affirmance of the decree, if it is granted, and the decree 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: 1