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 "natural persons". 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:
Kal W. LINES, Appellant, v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA, DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT, Appellee.
No. 15484.
United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.
March 28, 1957.
Max H. Margolis, San Francisco, Cal., for appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., James E. Sabine, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Eugene B. Jacobs, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Before STEPHENS, POPE and HAM-LEY, Circuit Judges.
STEPHENS, Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal from a decision of the District Court in bankruptcy proceedings entitled Matter of Blackwood, 147 F.Supp. 93. Appellant is the trustee in bankruptcy.
We are here asked to determine whether a trustee in bankruptcy is required to pay to the State of California the tax imposed upon employers by the California Unemployment Insurance Code on wages which had been earned by employees of the bankrupt within the three month period preceding the filing of the bankruptcy petition, when to do so would in effect reduce the dividend paid to the employees out of the bankrupt estate after other expenses .of administration had been paid.
Prior to demand by the state for the tax imposed on employers, it was determined that the value of the estate was only sufficient to pay the expenses of administration and a 52% dividend toward the wage claims. The trustee paid the wage dividend after first deducting state and federal taxes of the employees. There were no remaining assets in the estate from which the employer’s tax on the wages could be paid. The referee in bankruptcy held that the trustee was not obligated to pay the employer taxes, but this holding was reversed by the District Court in a well-reasoned opinion. In re Blackwood, 147 F.Supp. 93.
As was pointed out by both the referee in bankruptcy and the District Court, a trustee in bankruptcy did not come within the exact statutory definition of “employer” or “employing unit,” since the trustee had not employed the persons to whom the wage dividend was paid. But the District Court, on the basis of United States v. Fogarty, 8 Cir., 164 F.2d 26, 174 A.L.R. 1284 and United States v. Curtis, 6 Cir., 178 F.2d 268, held that with respect to the wages claimed, the trustee was in effect an “employer” and liable for the employer’s contribution based on the payments made to the wage claimants.
We agree with this holding by the District Court, but think it appropriate to further expand the reasons for reaching this result. United States v. Fogarty, supra, involved a claim against a trustee in bankruptcy for federal unemployment taxes as well as income withholding taxes. As to the federal unemployment taxes, it was held that the trustee was liable for such taxes based on wages earned by the bankrupt’s former employees prior to bankruptcy. It was therein pointed out that social security legislation was enacted as a broad program for the assistance of the aged and needy and that the function of the courts is to apply it in a manner to effectuate the declared purposes. It was shown that the basis for the administration of federal old age benefits is “wages” and that the character of the payments as wages rather than the relationship of the payor to the payee was the particular concern of the taxing provisions. The Court also pointed out in Fogarty, supra, the federal statute failed to define employers and employees specifically. A Treasury regulation was cited which defined what the phrase “remuneration for employment” includes.
In the instant ease the California Act defines “employer,” and there is no state regulation or state statute which is similar to the Treasury regulation defining “remuneration for employment.” But the difference is not controlling. We note that § 926 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code defines “wages as “all remuneration payable for personal services, whether by private agreement or consent or by force of statute, including commissions and bonuses, and the reasonable cash value of all remuneration payable in any medium other than cash.” (Emphasis supplied.) It is apparent that when a dividend is paid out of the bankrupt estate on a wage claim, it is being done “by force of statute.” Thus the sums paid as dividends are “wage” payments within the meaning of the California Act. But we are of the opinion that even without Section 926 of the California Act defining wages, the dividend payments made would still properly be considered as wages. The mere fact that the sums were actually paid to the employees by the trustee does not deprive the payments of their primary identification as wages. tt
We think the following quotation in United States v. Fogarty, supra, 164 F.2d at page 29, is applicable to the instant case.
“The fact that at the time payments were made those receiving them might no longer have been in the employ of the company would not be material. And certainly in many relations a trustee in bankruptcy stands in the shoes of a bankrupt and the property in his hands, unless otherwise provided in the Bankruptcy Act, is subject to all of the equities impressed upon it in the hands of the bankrupt.”
The District Court was correct in holding that the reasons for enacting social security laws were practically the same for both the federal Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 301 et seq. and the California Unemployment Insurance Code, and therefore well-reasoned construction regarding the scope of the federal act should have great weight in applying the California Code. Gillum v. Johnson, 7 Cal.2d 744, 62 P.2d 1037, 63 P.2d 810, 108 A.L.R. 595.
We also agree with the District Court’s analysis of § 976 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code, which, it was argued, precluded the payment of the taxes as an expense of administration. The cited section provides in part: “ * * * The contributions [employer’s tax] are due and shall be paid to the department for the Unemployment Fund by each employer in accordance with this division and shall not be deducted in whole or in part from the wages of individuals in his employ.” The District Court correctly determined that the California unemployment tax in the instant case was an expense of administration (it having accrued subsequent to the filing of the petition in bankruptcy) and that the payment of such tax is not a deduction from the wages paid to employees. The fund out of which the wage payments are made does not become definite in amount until all expenses of administration have been paid. It would seem that Section 976 of the California Act was enacted to cover the usual and normal situation of a going business.
In all respects the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
. The allowance of this appeal was granted pursuant to the provisions of Rule 33 of this Court, 28 U.S.C.A. The amount involved is only $28.88, but the appeal was granted because of its importance to the administration of bankruptcy proceedings in the federal courts of California.
. West’s Ann.Cal. Unemployment Insurance Code, § 675. “Employer. ‘Employer’ means any employing unit, which for some portion of a day, has within the current calendar year or had within the preceding calendar year in employment one or more individuals and pays wages for employment in excess of one hundred dollars ($100) during any calendar quarter.”
. West’s Ann.Cal. Unemployment Insurance Code, § 135. “Employing Unit. ‘Employing unit,’ means any individual or type of organization, including any partnership, association, trust, estate, joint stock company, insurance company, corporation whether domestic or foreign, and the receiver, trustee in bankruptcy, trustee or successor thereof, and the legal representative of a deceased person, which has, or subsequent to January 1, 1936, had, in its employ one or more individuals performing services for it within this State. All individuals performing services within this State for any employing unit which maintains two or more separate establishments within this State shall be deemed to be employed by a single employing unit for all the purposes of this division.”

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 0