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:
Robert P. McDANIEL, Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-Appellant, v. The FULTON NATIONAL BANK OF ATLANTA, Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee. Jan T. BARKSDALE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PEOPLES FINANCIAL CORP. OF ALPHARETTA, Defendant-Appellant. James R. BARRETT et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. VERNIE JONES FORD, INC., et al., Defendants-Appellants.
Nos. 75-2410, 75-2514 and 75-2515.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
July 21, 1978.
Marion H. Allen, III, Richard R. Cheat-ham, Albert C. Ruehmann, III, Atlanta, Ga., for defendants-appellants.
E. Lundy Baety, Atlanta, Ga., for Robert P. McDaniel.
Graydon W. Florence, Jr., Atlanta, Ga., for Jan T. Barksdale.
Mary Joyce Johnson, N. David Buffing-ton, Atlanta, Ga., for James R. Barrett et al.
Sewell K. Loggins, Douglas N. Campbell, Atlanta, Ga., for amicus curiae Beneficial Finance Co.
Ernest L. Sarason, Jr., Willard Ogburn, Boston, Mass., for amicus curiae National Consumer Law Center, Inc.
ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
(Opinion April 24, 1978, 5 Cir., 1978, 571 F.2d 948).
Before BROWN, Chief Judge, TUTTLE, THORNBERRY, COLEMAN, AINSWORTH, GODBOLD, MORGAN, CLARK, RONEY, GEE, TJOFLAT and FAY, Circuit Judges.
Circuit Judges Goldberg and Hill did not participate in the consideration or decision of this opinion. Circuit Judges Rubin and’Vance were not members of the court when this opinion was considered en banc and, therefore, did not participate in this decision.
PER CURIAM:
In a consolidated petition for rehearing, appellant lenders point to a possible ambiguity in our opinion, and we write to resolve it. The problem which they note arises from language in Federal Reserve Board Official Staff Interpretation No. FC-0054 which we quote with approval in our opinion. A possible reading of this language, and one which the lenders urge, is that even though a creditor possesses a contract right to accelerate payment and retain unearned finance charges, he need not disclose this right unless he in fact does so in the course of the collection process. We reject this interpretation out of hand as making disclosure requirements depend upon acts which may or may not take place in the collection process rather than on the creditor’s rights acquired at the time the loan is made.
What signifies is not what rights the creditor exercises in the event of default or how he exercises them but what rights he possesses under his contract with the debtor. So that there may be no doubt about our meaning, we reiterate: a mere contract right in the lender to accelerate principal payment in the event of default is not a “charge” imposed in that event and need not be disclosed. Nor need an additional disclosure of rebate provisions of unearned interest in the event of default be made if these are the same as disclosed rebate provisions in the event of voluntary prepayment. But if the creditor possesses under his contract the right to retain more unearned interest in the event of accelerated payment pursuant to default than in that of voluntary prepayment, or if he possesses the right to impose any additional charge whatever in the event of default, then the existence of that right in him must be disclosed — and this entirely without regard to whether or how he exercises that right in the event.
The petition for rehearing of defendants-appellants is
DENIED.
. 5 CCH Cons. Cred. Guide ' 31,522 (Mar. 21. 1977).

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