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:
William T. OWENS, Appellant, v. B. F. OAKES, Appellee.
No. 76-1646.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued Nov. 10, 1977.
Decided Jan. 10, 1978.
John E. Gehring, Walnut Cove, N. C., for appellant.
Jacob L. Safron, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen. (Rufus L. Edmisten, Atty. Gen. of N. C., Raleigh, N. C., on brief), for appellee.
Before RUSSELL, Circuit Judge, FIELD, Senior Circuit Judge, and WIDENER, Circuit Judge.
PER CURIAM:
A state prisoner appeals from the dismissal of his § 1983 action to recover damages on account of an assault and threats made against him by two guards at the prison where he was incarcerated, and by reason of the loss of certain prison privileges and good conduct time imposed as a result of prison disciplinary proceedings connected with the assault. In his prayer, he sought actual and pecuniary damages in the sum of $5,600,000, and injunctive relief vacating his “sentence” and requiring the issuance of warrants charging conspiracy against the defendant Oakes and Sergeant Carter and Guard Totten. The District Court dismissed the action without requiring a response from the defendant.
We affirm.
It is obvious on the face of the complaint that no action for assault or threats exists against the defendant Oakes, who neither participated nor acquiesced in such assault or threats under the plaintiff’s allegations. Rizzo v. Goode (1976) 423 U.S. 362, 96 S.Ct. 598, 46 L.Ed.2d 561. The two officers who the plaintiff alleges assaulted and threatened him were Sergeant Carter and Guard Totten. Neither is a defendant. So far as the loss of prison privileges and good conduct time are concerned, they were well within accepted limits of punishment which might be imposed after a prison disciplinary hearing under North Carolina procedure and the plaintiff makes no claim of any defect in the disciplinary proceedings themselves. Under those circumstances, the sentences imposed did not constitute a violation of constitutional rights. The demand for vacation of sentence is improper in a 1983 action. Moreover, even if we were to treat this as a habeas action, there is no allegation of any fact which would warrant the vacation of plaintiff’s sentence or of any punishment imposed as a consequence of the prison disciplinary hearing. Finally, the court was without authority to direct the issuance of arrest warrants as demanded. Hence, the District Court properly dismissed the action as without merit on its face.
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: 0