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 respondents in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the respondent is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

Opinion:
HOT SHOT QUALITY PRODUCTS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SIFERS CHEMICALS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
No. 71-1088.
United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.
Dec. 29, 1971.
Lewis S. Garner, Chicago Ill. (John H. Widdowson, Wichita, Kan., was with him on the brief), for plaintiff-appellant.
Robert D. Hovey, Kansas City, Mo. (Donald E. Johnson of Schmidt, Johnson, Hovey & Williams, Kansas City, Mo., George Maier, Jr., of Weeks, Thomas, Lysaught, Bingham & Johnston, Kansas City, Kan., of counsel; were with him on the brief), for defendant-appellee.
Before LEWIS, Chief Judge, and HOLLOWAY and DOYLE, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
This is a trademark infringement and unfair competition action brought by plaintiff, Hot Shot Quality Products, Inc., as the manufacturer of an insecticide marketed under the registered trademark “Hot Shot.” Plaintiff sought injunctive relief against defendant as the manufacturer of a carpet stain remover marketed under the registered trademark “Spot Shot.” Plaintiff’s registration was obtained in 1956, defendant’s in 1967, and both products are now enjoying quite wide distribution and sales throughout the nation. After trial in the District Court for the District of Kansas, submitted in large part upon stipulated facts, that court entered judgment for defendant, supported by findings and conclusions contrary to plaintiff’s contentions on all determinative issues. This appeal followed, plaintiff-appellant contending that the court erred in finding
(a) the trademark Hot Shot was descriptive in nature and had acquired no secondary meaning, and
(b) the trademark Spot Shot for a carpet stain remover was not likely to cause confusion of source with the product Hot Shot brand of insecticide.
We do not think disposition of this case requires specific consideration of plaintiff’s contention that the trial court erred in finding the trademark Hot Shot to be descriptive of its product, an insecticide. Even assuming that this trademark is not weakened as being one of functional description, the judgment below is clearly sustained by the further finding that no likelihood of buyer confusion exists as to product or source. Likelihood of confusion in either regard is a question of ultimate fact to be determined, in this case, by allowable inference from undisputed evidence. This court will not disturb such a finding absent clear error. Drexel Enterprises, Inc. v. Richardson, 10 Cir., 312 E.2d 525, and cases cited.
The record contains no evidence of actual buyer confusion and plaintiff relies substantially upon the phoenetic similarity between the two trademarks and the fact that both products are packaged in aerosol cans and are retailed through similar outlets such as supermarkets. However many products are so packaged and so marketed and the subject products are distinctly labeled and in clearly distinguishable containers. Plaintiff makes no appellate claim concerning product confusion and thus is left with the burden of persuading us that the record establishes that the trademark Hot Shot brings to the mind of the consuming public not a product but a producer. We are not so persuaded, for as the trial court noted, and, contrary to plaintiff’s present argument, properly emphasized, thirteen other registrations for the trademark Hot Shot have been issued by the Patent Office to separate registrants for products varying greatly in nature.
Affirmed.

Question: What is the total number of respondents in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1