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:
HOSKINS v. UNITED STATES.
No. 11882.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
June 9, 1941.
Edward II. Coulter, of Little Rock, Ark. (Jay M. Rowland and Roy Mitchell, both of Hot Springs, Ark., Kenneth W. Coulter and Boone T. Coulter, both o f Little Rock, Ark., on the brief), for appellant.
William H. Allen, of Washington D. G, Atty., Department of Justice, (Sam Rorex, U. S. Atty., of Little Rock, Ark., Julius C. Martin, of Washington, D. G, Director, Bureau of War Risk Litigation, and Wilbur C. Pickett, Sp. Asst, to the Atty. Gen., on the brief), for appellee.
Before SANBORN, WOODROUGH, and THOMAS, Circuit Judges.
TPIOMAS, Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal from a judgment for the defendant in a suit upon a war risk insurance policy. Premiums were paid on the policy keeping it in force until the end of September, 1927. The only issue upon the trial was whether the veteran became totally and permanently disabled as alleged on September 4-th of that year. The case was tried to the court without a jury. The court found that plaintiff was not permanently and totally disabled as alleged; that it was uncertain whether his disability at the time of the trial grew out of his excessive use of narcotics and alcohol or the disabilities complained of; and that it was probable that with full cooperation on his part and with freedom from narcotics and alcohol such disabilities would have been relieved. The plaintiff contends that the court erred in each of these findiugs.
The burden was on plaintiff to show total and permanent disability on the date alleged. Glick v. United States, 7 Cir., 93 F.2d 953, 958; Eggen v. United States, 8 Cir., 58 P.2d 616; Miller v. United States, 294 U.S. 435, 442, 55 S.Ct. 440, 79 L.Ed. 977. The case having been tried without a jury, unless the findings of the court upon which the judgment is based are clearly erroneous, the judgment cannot be reversed. Rule 52(a), Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c.
The plaintiff enlisted in the United States army June 27, 1918, and was discharged December 16, 1918. On his discharge plaintiff stated that he was suffering from no wound or other disability, and the medical officer reported that he had made a careful examination and found the soldier physically and mentally sound.
The complaint was filed January 5, 1931. For some immaterial reason the case was not tried until 1940. The complaint charged that on or about September 4, 1927, plaintiff underwent a serious operation for hemorrhoids, anal fissure, and chondromata around anus, and that since that date he has been totally and permanently disabled. He complains that since the operation by reason of the intense pain which he has suffered it has been necessary for him to take opiates and that his general nervous system and mental condition have been so shocked that he has been wholly unfit to carry on continuously any gainful occupation.
An extended review of the evidence is unnecessary. It appears that plaintiff suffered from rectal troubles as early as 1919. lie was treated by different doctors and in various hospitals. He underwent operations for his rectal troubles at different times and seemed to have recovered therefrom on several occasions. He began drinking alcoholic liquors soon after leaving the service, if not before. The rectal trouble always returned, and he became a narcotic addict as early as 1928. Morphine was prescribed at first to relieve the pain in the anus. At length he required as much as 10 grains of morphine daily.
The medical testimony is in substance that the form of rectal trouble from which plaintiff was suffering is generally curable with proper treatment. It is a reasonable inference from all the evidence that had he submitted to timely treatment and hospitalization and abstained from the use of morphine after he was discharged from the hospitals he would have been able to carry on his work successfully.
Plaintiff underwent an operation September 4, 1927. He remained in the hospital ten or fifteen days thereafter and then stayed at home for the rest of the year. During that period he was no doubt totally disabled. The important question is whether such disability was permanent. “Total disability is permanent if it is founded upon conditions which make it reasonably certain that it will continue throughout life * * * if subsequently [to the lapse of the policy] * * * other conditions arose which made it reasonably certain that the insured could never recover, those later conditions cannot he used to mature a policy which had ceased to exist.” Eggen v. United States, 8 Cir., 58 F.2d 616, 618, 619.
The evidence leaves the question of the permanence of plaintiff’s disability in September, 1927, in the realm of conjecture. It is consistent with an hypothesis that the disability was at that time permanent and also with an hypothesis that it was temporary. It, therefore, had no tendency to establish either. In this respect plaintiff failed to sustain the burden of proof. Gunning v. Cooley, 281 U.S. 90, 94, 50 S.Ct. 231, 74 L.Ed. 720; Stevens v. The White City, 285 U.S. 195, 52 S.Ct. 347, 76 L.Ed. 699; Eggen v. United States, supra. Under these circumstances it cannot be said that the findings of the court are clearly erroneous.
Plaintiff’s work record is consistent with the medical testimony. It does not aid him in sustaining the burden of proof. He is a lawyer. He was prosecuting attorney in a county in Arkansas from 1919 to 1922. He continued in the practice of law in various places with more or less success until 1933 or 1935. His nervous and mental condition from about 1928 grew worse until he finally gave up and quit. His decline in his profession paralleled his increasing use of morphine. It was simultaneous also with his repeated rectal troubles. The blending of his recurring disability with his increasing use of narcotics and with the inability to carry on his work is such that no one in the light of the medical testimony can with reasonable certainty distinguish cause and effect. We have read the record with care, and it abundantly supports the findings and judgment of the court. No good purpose would be served by discussing it at greater length.
Affirmed.

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