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:
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Petitioner, v. SMITH & WESSON, Respondent.
No. 7459.
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.
April 21, 1970.
Baruch A. Fellner, Washington, D. C., with whom Arnold Ordman, Gen. Counsel, Dominick L. Manoli, Assoc. Gen. Counsel, Marcel Mallet-Prevost, Asst. Gen. Counsel, and Leonard M. Wagman, Washington, D. C., were on brief, for petitioner.
Martin E. Skoler, Springfield, Mass., with whom Glazier & Skoler, Springfield, Mass., was on brief, for respondent.
Before ALDRICH, Chief Judge, COFFIN, Circuit Judge, and BOWNES, District Judge.
PER CURIAM.
This is a petition to enforce an NLRB order based on violations of section 8(a) (3) and (1) of the act, 29 U.S.C. § 158 (a) (3) and (1). The Board found that the company had engaged in certain threats of reprisals and other related anti-union conduct and that it subsequently discharged one William Dau-plaise because of his union activity. The company’s opposition in this court is based on the claim that the evidence did not warrant the findings.
For reasons not necessary to detail, the single contradicted incident of supervisor Haines’ initially telling Dauplaise that he would be “sorry” if the union lost, does not greatly impress us. In addition, the trial examiner’s finding it unlikely that leadman Parker would joke when he saw the word “Subpoena” on a paper seems, in all candor, unrealistic. Nor are we enthusiastic about holding the company for an isolated remark by an employee of so little authority as Parker. If not jocose, his statement not to pay attention to Board subpoenas seems self-generated, and unauthorized by any general company conduct or policy.
If this were all there were to the Board’s case we would find it of dubious strength. However, this inclination evaporates when we come to the principal issue. The Board’s finding with respect to Dauplaise’s termination is so strongly supported that we cannot regard the company’s resistance thereto as anything but frivolous. In spite of much protesting, there is not only no evidence that any previous employee had been terminated because he made his request for extended leave orally rather than in writing, but no solid reason appears for such rigidity. This is not even a case where there was a question as to the oral request. On the contrary, all witnesses not only agree that it was made, but that the employee was told he could have his job back as soon as he had his doctor’s certificate. Furthermore, on the company’s own evidence, the rule was not self-operating, and might be waived. Finally, apart from anti-union animus, there was a strong reason why Dauplaise should be retained, rather than let go.
This, of course, is the guts of the case. Some penalty should attach to taking up our time with such a meritless contention. The order will be enforced, and pursuant to FRAP 38 the Board will recover, in addition to its regular costs, the sum of $500 for expense.

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