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:
THE MATILDE PEIRCE.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
May 6, 1929.
No. 272.
Bigham, Englar, Jones & Houston, of New York City (Henry N. Longley and Ezra G. Benedict Fox, both of New York City, of counsel), for appellant.
Loomis & Ruebush, of New York City (Homer L. Loomis and Glenn W. Ruebush, both of New York City, of counsel), for appellees.
Before MANTON, SWAN, and AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judges.
AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judge.
The cargo involved consisted of a shipment of 1,000 barrels of cherries in brine at Bar-letta, Italy, and a further shipment of 1,302 barrels of similar merchandise at Monopoli. This merchandise was to be carried on the Matilde Peirce to New York, consigned to the American Trading Company, and the bills of lading contained no admission as to the condition of the goods.
Rodman, a surveyor of the cargo for the libelant, testified that when it arrived at New York many of the barrels were dry, and some of them were so crushed that they would not hold the brine; that subsequently the intact barrels were loaded on freight ears and forwarded to the purchasers, but some of the other barrels had their heads out, and there was extensive damage to 173 -barrels in all. Many of the cherries were shrunken, shriveled and soft on arrival, owing to lack of brine. Both Rodman and Vaughan, the other New York surveyor for the libelant, said that most of the barrels were stowed bilge to bilge, that they, were so imperfectly dun-nage.d and chocked that there was nothing to support the full weight of the upper on the lower tiers of barrels, and many of the barrels were consequently crushed and had lost their brine. Rodman added that these barrels had evidently contained brine when shipped, or the cherries would have arrived in a much worse — indeed, in a putrid — condition. Ho admitted that there was frequently leakage of brine and damage in shipments of barreled cherries, hut said the loss in this case was unusually great.
The claimants had a surveyor named Wylie, who examined the cargo in New York (record, folio 119), but they did not see fit to call him. The testimony of Rodman and Vaughan as to the condition of the goods on arrival was, therefore, uncontradieted by any witness who saw them on arrival, and was to the effect that there was imperfect stowage and serious damage.
The claimants took the deposition of Brunetti, the stevedore who supervised the stowage at Monop oli. His testimony as to method of stowage was somewhat confused and contradictory, but he testified with no variation that the barrels were sound and in perfect condition at the time of shipment and that he saw none leaking.
Garessi, another Italian stevedore, whose deposition was taken by claimants, inspected the barrels when the vessel arrived at Bari, a port of call. He said that he saw a small seepage from one barrel, which was reeoop-ered, but none of the barrels, except this one, showed signs of leaking, and none of them showed signs of having been used before.
The master of the vessel, whose testimony was taken by deposition, said that there was careful stowage, with plenty of dunnage and chocks, and that the barrels were stowed bilge and cantline, and not bilge and bilge. He also said there was rough weather on only one or two days of the voyage, and that no damage was done to the ship. He testified that the barrels at the time of loading were in normal condition, and offered no explanation of the damaged condition of a large number of the barrels and their loss of brine.
The trial judge held that the libelant had failed to prove that the damaged cherries had sufficient brine when shipped to preserve them from decay. He found that the stowage was proper, and accordingly dismissed the libel, because the bills of lading’ exempted the carrier from liability due to breakage and leakage, and held that the libelant was bound to show affirmatively that the damage was due to the 'carrier’s negligence, and had not sustained that burden.
In spite of our disinclination to revise a determination of a trial court on a question of fact, and our respect for the opinion of the experienced judge who conducted the trial, we differ with his conclusion in this case, and regard it as overcome by too strong inferences of fact to stand.
The claimants failed to call their own surveyor to show the condition of stowage on arrival, and have made no attempt at direct contradiction of the testimony of Rodman and Vaughan that, on arrival, the stowage appeared to be inadequate. Brunetti’s testimony as to stowage was contradictory. At first he said that nothing was done to prevent upper tiers of barrels from resting on lower tiers, but later testified that the upper barrels were so supported as not to exert any pressure. The claimants rely on the failure of libelant to prove that the barrels contained a sufficient supply of brine when shipped. But Rodman said that the condition of the cherries would have, been far worse than it was, had they started without brine. There was not the slightest attempt on the part of the claimants to prove that the barrels ware not good when shipped. Libelant’s own stevedores testified that they were sound, and were not leaking at Monopoli and Bari, hut that they arrived crushed, with the contents damaged, after an uneventful voyag-e. In view of all this, we deem it unreasonable to suppose that bad stowage was not the cause of the libelant’s loss. Breakage and leakage were the natural result of the had stowage Rodman and Vaughan saw on arrival. Bad stowage was negligence for which the libelant may recover, notwithstanding exceptions against leakage or breakage. The Arpillao (C. C. A.) 270 F. 426.
The decree is reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to enter an interlocutory decree for libelant, with the usual reference for damages.

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