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:
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Mance E. TRICE, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 18934.
United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.
June 17, 1969.
J. William Rutherford, Nashville, Tenn., for appellant.
Martha C. Daughtrey, Nashville, Tenn., Gilbert S. Merritt, Jr., U. S. Atty., Kent Sandidge, III, Asst. U. S. Atty., Nashville, Tenn., on brief, for appellee.
Before PHILLIPS, McCREE and COMBS, Circuit Judges
PER CURIAM.
This is a direct appeal from a conviction on two counts of an indictment charging unlawful possession of a check stolen from the United States mail and embezzlement of the proceeds of the check, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1702 and 1708. The jury found the defendant not guilty of the first count charging the taking of the envelope and its contents from the mail.
Two issues are presented on the appeal: (1) whether there was sufficient evidence to support the verdict of the jury; and (2) whether the District Judge committed reversible error at the time of sentencing by refusing to permit counsel for defendant to inspect a memorandum prepared by counsel for co-defendant and delivered by him to the probation officer. The United States Attorney stated that an “unusual circumstance” had come to his attention in that the probation officer had a report from the co-defendant’s counsel, who was in the courtroom. The United States Attorney commented that “I think it is apropos on the matter of sentencing. * * * ” Thereupon he handed the report or memorandum to the District Judge, who read it and commented that “I’m going to give him exactly the same sentence I was going to give him before I read this because this is not controlling on the sentence matter.” The attorney for appellant asserted that he had a right to see the report, but this request was denied. The District Court proceeded to sentence defendant to the custody of the Attorney General for a period of one year and six months on the second and third counts of the indictment, the sentences to run concurrently.
The refusal of the District Court to apprise defendant of the nature or content of the document was one of the grounds of defendant’s motion for a new trial. This motion was overruled.
Upon a study of the briefs and transcript and after hearing oral argument, we conclude that there is sufficient evidence in the record to support the conviction. The second question, concerning the refusal to inform counsel for defendant of the nature and content of the document which was furnished to and read by the District Judge immediately prior to sentencing, presents a more serious issue.
As a general rule when any communication is made to the District Judge by the prosecutor or a co-defendant at the time of sentencing for the purpose of influencing the sentence, other than through the probation officer in time for investigation, evaluation and report, we think its content should be disclosed to counsel for defendant upon his request.
After oral argument on the present appeal, this Court has obtained from the clerk of the District Court for in camera inspection the original of the document in question. Every member' of the panel has read this document. We think it would have been better practice for the District Judge to have disclosed the contents of this document to counsel for defendant, either in chambers or in open court. However, since the District Judge stated affirmatively that this document had no effect on sentencing and there is nothing about the sentence to indicate the contrary, we conclude that refusal to divulge the contents of the document to counsel for defendant did not constitute reversible error under the facts and circumstances of the present case.
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