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:
Bertha SILVERMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Alfons LANDA, Defendant-Appellee, and Fraehauf Trailer Company, Defendant.
No. 298, Docket 27353.
United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.
Argued April 3, 1962.
Decided Aug. 17, 1962.
Sidney B. Silverman, New York City (Rosenfeld & Silverman, New York City, on the brief), for plaintiff-appellant.
Marvin F. Hartung, New York City (Conboy, Hewitt, O’Brien & Boardman, Eugene J. T. Flanagan, and Donald Fried, New York City, on the brief), for defendant-appellee.
Peter A. Dammann, Gen. Counsel, Walter P. North, Associate Gen. Counsel, and George P. Michaely, Jr., Sp. Counsel, for Securities and Exchange Commission, as amicus curiae.
Before CLARK, HINCKS and FRIENDLY, Circuit Judges.
HINCKS, Circuit Judge.
Silverman, a stockholder of Fruehauf Trailer Company, sued Landa, a director of the corporation, for profits realized from his simultaneous writing of puts and calls on Fruehauf stock. Landa, the beneficial owner of 2,000 Fruehauf shares, issued the following options.
1. “Calls” on 1,000 shares at 24% per share (the then market price), for which he received a premium of $4,000.
2. “Puts” on 500 shares, also at 24%, for which the premium he received was $1,000.
The calls were irrevocable options to buy, under which the optionee could call on Landa to assign 1,000 shares upon demand at any time within the next year and tender of the option price of 24%. The puts were the converse; the op-tionee, any time within the next year, upon tender of 500 shares could demand payment of the option price.
Silverman brought this derivative action to recover, for the corporation, Landa’s profit on these transactions, claiming that the “straddle” (i. e., the matched sale of puts and calls on 500 shares), was a sale and purchase of Fruehauf stock prohibited by § 16(b) ******of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C.A. § 78p(b), and that the remaining 500-share call was a short sale prohibited by § 16(c). Alternatively, it was claimed that the calls for 1,000 shares were short sales and subject to § 16(c). On cross-motions for summary judgment on facts admitted by Landa’s affidavits and stipulated, Judge Murphy held that the options did not constitute a purchase and sale within the purview of § 16(b) or sales prohibited by § 16(c) and dismissed the complaint. 200 F.Supp. 193 (S.D. N.Y.1961).
Plaintiff relies first on § 3(a) (13) and (14), 15 U.S.C.A. § 78c(a) (13) and (14), which define “purchase” and “sale” to include contracts to buy and to sell. This court has held that when fixing the six-months’ period, “the time when the alleged insider’s rights and obligations became fixed [is] controlling in the application of the statute,” Blau v. Ogsbury, 210 F.2d 426, 427 (2d Cir. 1954); Falco v. Donner Foundation, Inc., 208 F.2d 600, 40 A.L.R.2d 1340 (2d Cir.1953). Since Landa became irrevocably bound for the next year to buy and sell at the optionee’s pleasure, at the time he issued the options, plaintiff claims that a “sale and purchase” then occurred.
Plaintiff misconceives the nature of an option. By its nature, the option is one-sided; it fixes the obligations, but not the rights, of the issuer. Landa cannot be said to have “sold” or “purchased” Fruehauf stock; should the options lapse unexercised (and in fact the call options did so lapse), no change in his beneficial ownership of the underlying security would occur. And, most importantly, any change would occur at the pleasure of the optionee. Only if both the options had been exercised within their first six months would there have been a “sale and purchase” of the underlying security within the reach of § 16(b). And if, under the sweeping definition of the Act, each option (as distinguished from the stock covered by the option) itself is viewed as an “equity security,” as the plaintiff contends, he still has no case. For the call was never exercised and the put was exercised not until after the six months’ period. Thus there was no sale and purchase of either option within the statutory period. Moreover, Landa who subsequent to the six months’ period had paid a brokerage firm to assume his obligation under the put, derived no profit from his dealings with respect to the put.
The plaintiff argues that this type of transaction offers such possibilities for abuse of inside information, and such temptation to manipulation, that it is clearly within the policy of the Act and should therefore be penalized. Abuse of information is assumed in that if Landa knew that dividends and earnings would remain stable for a year he could write a straddle for a year with confidence that neither option would be exercised. But even this position depends on the wholly untenable assumption that earnings and dividends are the sole factors which control market prices' — a proposition contrary to the statute itself, which assumes that, after six months, the likelihood of profits from inside information is too remote to warrant continued restriction in the free play of market transactions.
These underlying assumptions in which the plaintiff indulges seem to us remote, at best. But it is true that “[fc]he statute is broadly remedial * * intended * * * to squeeze all possible profits” out of abuses, “and thus to establish a standard so high as to prevent any conflict between the selfish interest of a fiduciary officer, director, or stockholder and the faithful performance of his duty,” Smolowe v. Delendo Corp., 136 F.2d 231, 239, 148 A.L.R. 300 (2d Cir. 1943), cert. denied 320 U.S. 751, 64 S.Ct. 56, 88 L.Ed. 446 (1943). Notwithstanding, of course the statute did not intend to penalize every speculative transaction; otherwise it would not have categorically limited its impact to purchases and sales occurring within six months. Merely because the options may have been entered into for a speculative purpose, it does not follow that they constitute purchases and sales of the type which were penalized.
The plaintiff claims further that the straddle which Landa issued was an arbitrage brought within the purview of § 16(b) by Rule 16d-l of the General Rules and Regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our holding that the options did not constitute a purchase and sale under § 16(b) of course disposes of this claim also.
Alternately, plaintiff contends that the sale of call options is a short sale or a “sale against the box” within the meaning of § 16(c). Apparently, the plaintiff argues that a call-option presents the same dangers of insider manipulation as sales short or against the box. Here again our holding that a call-option is not a sale of the underlying security demolishes the plaintiff’s contention. But that apart, a call-option does not violate § 16(c). For it falls within the proviso that “no person shall be deemed to have violated this subsection if he proves that notwithstanding the exercise of good faith he was unable to make such delivery within [twenty days]”; obviously one who issues a call-option cannot deliver the underlying security until called on to do so. And plaintiff’s asserted dangers seem unreal when we bear in mind that the Commission, under § 9 (b), has complete power to ban or regulate all trading in options — a power it has not yet felt compelled to use.
Thus our holding as already indicated makes it unnecessary for us to consider the defendant’s contention that § 16(c) of the Act, in that it makes no express provision for a civil recovery in favor of the corporate defendant, precludes recovery.
Affirmed.
. “(b) For the purpose of preventing the unfair use of information which may have been obtained by such beneficial owner, director, or officer by reason of his relationship to the issuer, any profit realized by him from any purchase and sale, or any sale and purchase, of any equity security of such issuer (other than an exempted security) within any period of less than six months, unless such security was acquired in good faith in connection with a debt previously contracted, shall inure to and be recoverable by the issuer, irrespective of any intention on the part of such beneficial owner, director, or officer in entering into such transaction of holding the security purchased or of not repurchasing the security sold for a period exceeding six months. Suit to recover such profit may be instituted at law or in equity in any court of competent jurisdiction by the issuer, or by the owner of any security of the issuer in the name and in behalf of the issuer if the issuer shall fail or refuse to bring such suit within sixty days after request or shall fail diligently to prosecute the same thereafter; but no such suit shall be brought more than two years after the date such profit was realized. This subsection shall not be construed to cover any transaction where such beneficial owner was not such both at the time of the purchase and sale, or the sale and purchase, of the security involved, or any transaction or transactions which the Commission by rules and regulations may exempt as not comprehended within the purpose of this subsection.”
. “(c) It shall be unlawful for any such beneficial owner, director, or officer, directly or indirectly, to sell any equity security of such issuer (other than an exempted security), if the person soiling the security or his principal (1) does not own the security sold, or (2) if owning the security, does not deliver it against such sale within twenty days thereafter, or does not within five days after such sale deposit it in the mails or other usual channels of transportation; but no person shall be deemed to have violated this subsection if he proves that notwithstanding the exercise of good faith he was unable to make such delivery or deposit within such time, or that to do so would cause undue inconvenience or expense.”
. See § 3(a) (11) of the Act (“any stock or similar security; any security convertible * * * into such a security, or carrying any warrant or right to subscribe to or purchase such a security; or any such warrant or right * * * ”); Comment, 69 Yale L.J. 868, 872-73 (1960); see also Uniform Commercial Code § 8-102 (Proposed Final Draft 1950) (security an “instrument which is issued in bearer or registered form * * of a type commonly dealt in upon securities exchanges or markets or commonly recognized in any area in which it is issued or dealt in as a medium for investment”) .
. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed briefs, both here and in the district court, supporting plaintiff’s view that the options were a “purchase” and “sale” of the underlying security, relying on Blau v. Ogsbury, supra. But here, we think, they err. In Blau, the insider bought under an option, prior to sale of other shares of the underlying security. The question was whether the sale and purchase wore within the six-months’ period, it being admitted that purchase of the underlying security under an option was indistinguishable from open-market purchase. But there the insider was the optionee; his exercise of the option fixed his position as to the underlying security, thus acting as a “purchase.” And here, as we have pointed out, the insider-opiioxior’s position in the underlying security is not fixed when he sells the option, but when the option is exercised and the underlying security changes hands. As to purchase and sale of the option itself, see text at note 3 supra.
. The Commission, we note, takes a position opposed to this contention, as well as to the claim of arbitrage.

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

Choices:

Answer: 1