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:
Mabel NEVIN, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 81-4365.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Argued and Submitted July 14, 1982.
Decided Jan. 17, 1983.
Edward J. Nevin, San Francisco, Cal., Allan Jay Favish, Fogle, Rothschild, Feldman & Ostrove, Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants.
George C. Stoll, Asst. U.S. Atty., San Francisco, Cal., for defendant-appellee.
Before CHOY and NORRIS, Circuit Judges, and SMITH, District Judge.
The Honorable Russell E. Smith, Senior United States District Judge for the District of Montana, sitting by designation.
CHOY, Circuit Judge:
Relatives of Edward Nevin appeal from a judgment in favor of the United States in this wrongful-death action brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act (the FTCA), 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b). They claim that Nevin died as a result of the Government’s negligence in conducting a simulated biological warfare attack on the City of San Francisco in 1950. The district court concluded in part that the Government was immune from suit because its acts fell within the discretionary function exemption to the FTCA, 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a).
On appeal, the Nevins concede that the selection of the test site fell within the discretionary function exemption, but argue that the selection of the strain of bacterium used did not. Even assuming that we should isolate the selection of the strain of bacterium from the selection of the site, we conclude that the decision to use the particular strain was exempt as a discretionary function.
The discretionary function exemption provides, in pertinent part, that the United States has not waived sovereign immunity on
[a]ny claim ... based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal agency or an employee of the Government, whether or not the discretion involved be abused.
28 U.S.C. § 2680(a). The purpose of the exemption is to permit the government to make planning-level decisions without fear of suit. Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 32, 73 S.Ct. 956, 966, 97 L.Ed. 1427 (1953); Lindgren v. United States, 665 F.2d 978, 980 (9th Cir.1982).
In this circuit, whether an act or omission falls within the exemption depends generally on whether that act or omission occurred at the planning level or the operational level of government. Weiss v. Lehman, 676 F.2d 1320, 1322 (9th Cir.1982), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 725, 74 L.Ed.2d 953 (1983); Lindgren, 665 F.2d at 980. In making the determination, we have also considered the ability of the judiciary to evaluate the act or omission and whether the judicial evaluation would impair the effective administration of the government. Lindgren, 665 F.2d at 980 (citing Driscoll v. United States, 525 F.2d 136, 138 (9th Cir.1975)).
There is ample evidence in the record to support the conclusion that the decision by the Chief Chemical Officer, General Anthony McAuliffe, to use the particular strain of bacterium was made at the planning level. It is undisputed that General McAuliffe was responsible for the final authorization of all test plans concerning biological warfare vulnerability. He made the decision to use San Francisco as the site. He personally approved the selection of serratia marcescens recommended by scientific and medical advisory personnel. That approval came only after General McAuliffe and one of his fellow officers conducted independent evaluations concerning the safety of the strain of bacterium. The final decision of whether to proceed with any given test or program rested with General McAuliffe and, as the district court noted, “although he tended to rely on his technical advisors he was not bound to do so..., General McAuliffe could have withheld his approval for the test for any reason, including the technical advice he was given or simply on his own judgment as to the inadvisability of conducting the test.” Indeed, General McAuliffe himself rejected the plan to conduct a test using the same strain in the subways of New York.
In making the decisions concerning the testing, including which strain of bacterium to use, General McAuliffe had to weigh numerous factors, including concerns for national security, a need for secrecy, the possible risks of urban testing, and applicable medical concerns. As the Nevins admit, the higher the governmental rank involved in making any decision of this type, the more likely it is that political, social, military and economic factors were weighed. Upon careful reflection, we do not think that this court is equipped to weigh the type of factors involved in such a basic policy determination. In addition, our review would likely impair the effective administration of government programs believed to be vital to the defense of the United States at the time that they are conducted.
In summary, none of the considerations we examine to determine the applicability of the discretionary function exemption calls for reversal of the district court’s determination. Whether the discretionary function exemption applies, however, is a question of subject-matter jurisdiction. Lindgren, 665 F.2d at 983. We must, therefore, vacate the judgment of the district court and remand the case with instruction to dismiss the action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
VACATED and REMANDED.

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