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:
GOETZINGER et al. v. WOODLEY et al.
(Circuit Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit,
January 11, 1927.)
No. 2527.
1. Appeal and error <@=>544(1) — Compulsory nonsuit and exclusion of evidence is not reviewable without bill of exceptions.
Entry of compulsory nonsuit at close of plaintiffs’ evidence and exclusion of evidence cannot be reviewed without proper bill of exceptions.
2. Exceptions,' bill of <@=>40(4) — Defendants’ agreement, indorsed on plaintiffs’ bill of exceptions, tiled before expiration of time as extended, cannot give jurisdiction, where judge signed it after expiration of such time.
Where plaintiffs’ bill of exceptions, filed before expiration of term, was not signed by judge until 5 months after expiration of term, and over 4% months after expiration of latest extension of time for settling it, court had no jurisdiction to allow it, notwithstanding defendants, before expiration of time, had indorsed their agreement thereon, since consent cannot give jurisdiction to federal courts.
3. Exceptions, bill of <@=>56(4) — Federal courts may not consider bill of exceptions not authenticated by judge’s signature (Comp. St. § 1590).
In view of Act June 5, 1900, § 1 (Oomp. St. § 1590), federal courts may not consider bill of exceptions, unless it is authenticated by a judicial signature.
In Error to the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Washington; Isaae M. Meekins, Judge.
Action by M. E. Goetzinger and another against S. W. Woodley and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff brings error. On defendants’ motion to dismiss.
Motion granted, and judgment affirmed.
A. D. MacLean, of Washington, N. C. (Tazewell Taylor, of Norfolk, Va., and W. B. Rodman, Jr., of Washington, N. C., on the brief), for plaintiffs in error.
H. S. Ward, of Washington, N. C. (Junius D. Grimes, of Washington, N. C., on the brief), for defendants in error.
Before WADDILL, ROSE, and PARKER, Circuit Judges.
ROSE, Circuit Judge.
The plaintiffs in error, who occupied the same position below, assign as error the entry of a compulsory nonsuit at the close of their evidence and the exclusion of certain testimony offered by them. These are matters which cannot be considered by us, unless the facts out of which they arose are made to appear by a proper bill of exceptions. While the suit was brought as far back as 1916, it was not tried until the January special term in the year 1926. On the 28th of January, after the judgment complained of had been entered, an order was made giving 90 days to file and serve the bill of exceptions; that is, until April 28th, a day which fell within the regular statutory April term of the court. On the 2-3d of April the court extended the time for the plaintiffs to serve their bill of exceptions until May 5th. On April 26th the plaintiffs filed with the clerk a draft of a bill of exceptions, and the next day served a copy of it upon the counsel for the defendants, who on the 21st of May, upon the draft in the clerk’s office, wrote and signed a statement that the “foregoing is agreed to and settled as the bill of exceptions.” Up to that time, and for many months afterwards, it had never been presented to the judge, and, of course, had not been signed by him. Nevertheless, the clerk of the District Court incorporated it in the certified transcript of record transmitted to us.
On the 29th of September, some 4% months after the expiration of the latest extension of the time for perfecting the bill, the plaintiffs presented a copy of the transcript to the learned judge below, and on the 29th of September 1926, he certified that such transcript had been submitted to him on that day, and that “the same is correct and the bill of exceptions appearing therein are” (sic) “hereby adopted and approved by me.” The defendants have moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that, as the bill of exceptions was not signed in time, there is nothing for us to review. The plaintiffs answer that the defendants by their agreement of May 21st are estopped from making the objection. The defendants reply that, be1 fore they made the agreement in question, the time for settling the bill of exceptions had already expired, and that in any event they never agreed to any extension, or waived the well-established rule of the federal court that a bill of exceptions requires the signature of the judge.
We need not go into this portion of the controversy, for the Supreme Court has expressly decided that, under circumstances such as that existing in the instant case, consent cannot give jurisdiction to the court to allow the bill. Exporters of Manufacturers’ Products, Inc., v. Butterworth-Judson Co., 258 U. S. 365, 42 S. Ct. 331, 66 L. Ed. 663. Our own decision in E. I. Dupont de Nemours & Co. v. Smith (C. C. A.) 249 F. 403, is therefore to be treated as overruled. In this ease the earliest date on which the bill of exceptions was presented to the judge was 5 months after the end of the term at which the judgment was entered and more than 4Ve months after the expiration of the latest extension of the time for settling such bill.
It is perhaps worth while to note that the practice prevailing in some states, under which the bill of exceptions may be settled by the agreement of the parties without asking or securing the assent of the judge, does not exist in the federal courts. They may not consider such a bill, unless it is authenticated by a judicial signature. Origit v. United States, 125 U. S. 240, 243, 8 S. Ct. 846, 31 L. Ed. 743; Malony v. Adsit, 175 U. S. 281, 20 S. Ct. 115, 44 L. Ed. 163. It is true that some six months after the decision in the latter case was handed down, and doubtless in consequence of what was then said, Congress provided that, in the event of the death, sickness, or other disability of the trial judge, another judge might sign the bill, if he thought he could fairly do so. Section 1, Act June 5, 1900, 31 Stat. 270 (Comp. St. § 1590). This enactment, however, simply emphasizes the necessity for the signature of some judge.
It follows, from what has been said, that the so-called bill of exceptions cannot be considered by us, and, if it be stricken from our record, as it must be, there is no foundation for any of the assignments of error relied on.
Affirmed.

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: 99