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:
HOLUB v. SWORD S. S. LINE, Inc. THE WESTERN SWORD.
No. 10369.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
Dec. 18, 1942.
H. C. Hughes, of Galveston, Tex., for appellant.
W. M. Ryan, of Houston, Tex., for ap= pellee.
Before HUTCHESON and McCORD, Circuit Judges, and KENNERLY, District Judge.
KENNERLY, District Judge.
On July 10, 1941, the Steamship “Western Sword” was at the Port of Galveston, Texas, to take on a cargo of sulphur to be shipped by the Texas Gulf Sulphur Company. Appellant and another, both employees of the Sulphur Company, went upon the Ship on that date to inspect her holds and determine whether they were clean and in condition for taking on a cargo of sulphur. The Ship had formerly been equipped with cargo battens (planks or strips of wood) held in place by “cleats” (also called “angle irons” or “cargo board hangers”) made of iron. The cargo battens were not needed in shipping sulphur and had been removed, but the cleats remained. It was necessary in inspecting the Ship for Appellant to climb about, and in doing so, he, instead of using the ladders belonging to the Ship, which were available, used the cleats, and because the bolt or bolts holding it had rusted, one of the cleats, when his weight was placed upon it, broke or came loose, causing him to fall, and he was injured.
Thereupon, Appellant brought this suit in Admiralty against the Ship for damages for such injury, charging unseaworthiness of the Ship and that she and her owners were negligent.
The Owners appeared, answered specially, and only as Claimants of the Ship, denied negligence, claimed Appellant to be guilty of negligence, pleaded assumed risk, and set forth that Appellant had been paid compensation for his injury under the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C.A. § 901 et seq., and that this suit, if prosecuted at all, should be prosecuted by Appellant’s employer, the Sulphur Company. Judgment went for Appellee, and Appellant is here complaining. The Trial Judge filed Findings of Fact, which we find well supported by the evidence, and which we approve.
The cleats were placed and maintained in the Ship solely to hold the cargo battens in place and not for use by Appellant or others in climbing about inspecting the Ship. Appellee owed Appellant no duty to maintain them so that Appellant could safely use them to climb upon, and the Ship was not rendered unseaworthy because of Appellee’s failure to do so, nor was such failure negligence unless Appellee knew, or under the facts should have known, or was charged with notice, that Appellant intended to and would so use them. The Queen Elizabeth, D.C., 209 F. 712, Consolidation Coastwise Co. v. Conley, 1 Cir., 250 F. 679, 680, New Orleans Coal & Bisso Towboat Co. v. United States, 5 Cir., 86 F.2d 53, Smith v. United States, 5 Cir., 96 F.2d 976.
The Trial Judge found that Appellee had no means of knowing and did not know before the injury that Appellant was on the Ship for the purpose of inspecting it, and had no reason to believe that he would go on the Ship and make use of the cleats in climbing to make the inspection. Appellant and several of the other witnesses testified to a local custom of persons using the cleats instead of the ladders in inspecting ships, but the Trial Judge made no specific finding on the point. He did find that if there was such a local custom, that it was conclusively shown that Appellee did not know of it. He also found that there was no such general custom, but that it was the general custom, which was known to Appellee, for persons so inspecting ships to make use of ladders, and that ladders were available on the Ship and would have been furnished Appellant at his request. That neither Appellant nor his fellow employee requested the use of ladders.
The Judgment for Appellee was right. It is affirmed.
The wording of the charge of unseaworthiness and negligence as found in Appellant’s Libel is as follows:
“That the S. S. Western Sword and the owners thereof were guilty of negligence in the following particulars :
“(a) In failing to have their ship in proper and seaworthy condition for the use of persons like the libelant who would have business upon said ship ;
“(b) In failing to have their ship properly inspected so that they might have discovered the condition of said cargo board hanger;
“(c) In failing to provide the libelant with a safe place to do the work which those in charge of the S. S. Western Sword and its owners knew had to be performed in the loading of sulphur cargoes.
“(d)"In failing to have a safe cargo board hanger (cleats) upon said ship in a place where it was well known that those doing such work as required by libelant would probably and necessarily go.”
Findings 7 and 8 of the Trial Judge are as follows:
“7. Libelant and his witnesses testified to a local custom of using the cleats for the purpose of climbing up the sides of the vessel and making these inspections. There was no evidence, however, of any general custom and it was shown conclusively that the ship’s officers knew of no such local custom. The general custom was to make use of ladders, which were available on the vessel at the time and would have been furnished upon request. They were not requested by libelant or his fellow employee. The ship’s officers had no means of knowing, before the injury, that libelant was on the vessel for the purpose of making an inspection; and no reason to believe that he would make use of the cleats in climbing up to make his inspection. There was no evidence that this particular vessel had ever been inspected before by employees of the Sulphur Company, and no evidence justifying the Court in concluding that the ship’s officers might have anticipated the use of the cleats for such purpose.
“8. Of course the owners of the vessel owed libelant the duty to furnish him a safe place to work, and to warn him of any hidden danger; but this is not a case in which defective appliances were furnished or where the owners or officers-of the vessel had notice of a local custom or reasonable grounds to believe that libelant would use the cleats for- the purpose of climbing up the sides of the vessel.”

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