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:
MATSON NAV. CO. v. WAR DAMAGE CORPORATION.
No. 11925.
United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.
Feb. 28, 1949.
Herman Phleger, Gregory A: Harrison, Bailey Lang, Lyman Henry and Kent Sawyer, all of San Francisco, Cal. (Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison and Hall, Henry & Oliver, all of San Francisco, Cal., of counsel), for appellant.
Ira S. Lillick, Allan E. Charles, Edward D. Ransom, and Lillick, Geary, Olson, Adams & Charles, all of San Francisco, Cal, for appellee.
Before HEALY, BONE, and ORR, Circuit Judges.
HEALY, Circuit Judge.
While en route from the Hawaiian Islands to the continental United States, on December 11, 1941, the Matson ship LAPIAINA was sunk by a Japanese submarine. In this suit the owner sought to recover from the War Damage Corporation the value of the ship, its theory being that protection for the loss was afforded by § 5g of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation Act. Recovery was denied below, and the Matson Company appeals.
Section 5g was added to the Reconstruction Finance Act by way of amendment on March 27, 1942, 56 Stat.L. 175. It authorized the War Damage Corporation to provide, not later than July 1, 1942, insurance protection against loss or damage to property, real and personal, as a result of enemy attack, subject to such general exceptions as the Corporation might deem advisable, upon the payment of premiums or charges to be fixed. The insurance protection, so far as here important, was to apply only (1) to such property situated in the United States, the Philippine Islands, the Canal Zone, and the Territories and possessions of the United States, and (2) “to such property in transit between any points located in any of the foregoing.” In the interval pending the effective inauguration of the program loss or damage to any such property sustained subsequent to December 6, 1941, was to be compensated without the necessity of a contract of insurance or the payment of premium or other charge.
The question for decision is whether a ship constitutes “property in transit” within the intendment of this statute. The district court was of opinion that the protection afforded by the “in transit” clause was limited to cargo or goods; and that ships, to which marine war risk insurance under the provisions of the Merchant Marine Act 1936, as amended, 46 U.S.C.A. § 1128 et seq., was then available, were not within the coverage afforded. We agree with this interpretation.
The “in transit” clause is not so free from ambiguity as to preclude resort to the legislative history. The opinion of the trial court, 74 F.Supp. 705, exhaustively reviews the background and history of the statute and it would be idle for us again to plow that field. It is clear from the committee hearings that, except for a limited period in respect of cargo, Congress had no intention of authorizing the War Damage Corporation to cover what the Maritime Commission already had authority to insure. The concession in respect of property in transit was made in response to the pleas of the delegates from Hawaii and Alaska, whose sole concern, as expressed before the Senate committee, was for coverage for goods in transit to and from their ports; and even this concession appears to have been made, in part at any rate, under a misapprehension. From the inception of the legislation to the final enactment of the statute protection for ships appears to have formed no part of this particular program. The evidence to this effect is simply overwhelming.
Other and formidable arguments are advanced by appellee in support of the judgment, but because of the approach we have made to the problem it is unnecessary to consider them.
Affirmed.
Tiie misapprehension appears, among other places, in a statement of Mr. Hamilton, General Counsel for the R.F.C., who remarked that the existing law had been criticized on the ground that “the shipper could not bo sure that his cargo will be carried by American vessels.” Hearing before House Committee on Banking and Currency, Feb. 4, 1942, on H.R. 6382 (S. 2198).

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