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:
CHICAGO TELEPHONE SUPPLY CO. v. STACKPOLE CARBON CO.
No. 7253.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
June 29, 1940.
Ira Milton Jones, of Milwaukee, Wis. (Stebbins, Blenko & Parmelee, of Pittsburgh, Pa., of counsel), for appellant.
Brown, Critchlow & Flick, of Pittsburgh, Pa. (Jo Baily Brown and Victor A. Peckham, both of Pittsburgh, Pa., of counsel), for appellee.
Before BIGGS, MARIS, and CLARK, Circuit Judges.
CLARK, Circuit Judge.
The art is a small corner of the vast radio structure. All of us are familiar with the “click” when we turn on our radios. That click reflects the closing of a power switch. We also recall that to increase (or in reverse decrease) the volume of sound we turn the knob further. That further turning 'lowers the resistance and so raises the sound. It is desirable to prevent electrical interference as between the switch mechanism and the resistance circuit (rheostat). Two electrical engineers pose the problem thus: “If a charged object (that is, an object with a voltage different f-rom that of the ground, or greater than zero) is suspended above the ground, there is an electrostatic field between the object and the ground. This field may be represented by lines of force extending from the object to the ground, between which the voltage of each line of force is graduated from zero to that of the object. Consequently, if a second and uncharged object is placed in the field between the first object and the ground, the second object will assume a voltage corresponding to its place in the field. However, frequently it is not desirable for the second object to become so 'charged.’” Hartmann and Meagher, Shielding in Radio Receivers, Radio News, February, 1927, p. 988, 2 R. 69.
The patent is in essence a bid for a monopoly in a hole. The patent solicitor, of course, does not put it quite that way. In a case recently considered in this Circuit, another patent solicitor dignified the humble orifice by calling it a “localized opening”, Gardiner v. Freed Heater Mfg. Co., 3 Cir., 107 F.2d 364, 365. We say that the patent is for a hole for' this reason. Everyone agrees to the desirability of separating the two elements by a non-conductor. That separation had been accomplished by what the industry describes as shielding. The shields are small and thin pieces of metal (aluminum, brass, copper) and are grounded. They are almost as old as the art both in practice, Centralab Volume Control, 1930, Exhibit UU, 1 R. 385, Centralab Volume' Control, 1931, Exhibit VV, 1 R. 385, Atwater Kent Volume Control, Exhibit R., 1 R. 384, Atwater Kent Volume Control, Exhibit S, 1 R. 384, in the scientific literature, cited in Hartmann and Meagher, Shielding in Radio Receivers, above cited, and Felix, Why Shielding?, Radio Broadcast, June, 1927, 2 R. 83, and in the kindness of the Patent Office, Patent to Moore, No. 1,641,-395. In an article received in evidence, 1 R. 345, 2 R. 79, and relied on in defendant’s brief, p. 8, the learned author describes the operation of these shields, saying: “* * * Obviously, any change of potential in a conductor in a radio set will cause potential changes in all nearby conductors. Warding off the influence of the electrostatic field is simple and the most elementary application of shielding will accomplish it. The electrostatic influence is restricted by placing a grounded conductor between any point where potentials rise or fall and neighboring objects which are likely to be influenced by the electrostatic effects resulting therefrom. If a good conducting path is provided to the ground, the influence of the electrostatic field does not penetrate beyond the shield.” Felix, Why Shielding?, above cited, p. 83, 2 R. 79.
To secure compactness with a protruding switch and a flat plate as elements, a hole in the plate is plainly a sine qua non. By the same token, it is obvious not only to any mechanic (electrician) but to any child. This assumes that a change in size whether by way of shrinking or expanding is patentable at all. Any such view would tend to proportion the number of patents to the number of inches available in and for a particular apparatus.
We think that the less said about the claimed prior use the better. For that reason we do not place our decision on that ground. The alleged inventor is himself an artisan in a radio assembly plant. Other persons had had his idea, but, as he claimed, later in time. To defeat them he had to assert and prove completion of his work in April, '1928. In the interference proceedings he did so. But that very evidence was dangerous on prior use; in other words, we have the horns of a dilemma. We declare for neither horn and so need not adjudicate the interesting question of experimental use. A Circuit Court of Appeals in another Circuit took a serious view of one horn, Globe-Union, Inc. v. Chicago Telephone Supply Co., 7 Cir., 103 F.2d 722.
The decree of the District Court dismissing the bill of complaint is affirmed.
Robinson, Manual of Radio Telegraphy and Telephony, pp. 282, 396; Fleming, Principles of Electric Wave Telegraph and Telephony; Meagher, Proper Shielding and How to Do It, -N. Y. Telegram and Evening Mail, Radio Section, August 30, 1924; Morecroft and Turner, The Shielding of Electric and Magnetic Fields, Proceedings I. R. E., August, 1925; Clemons, The Shielding Problem, QST. March, 1926; Dreyer and Manson, The Shielded Neutrodyne Receiver, Proceedings I. R. E. April, 1926; Henderson, Multi-Purpose Shielded Units, QST. Sept., 1926; Hazeltine, Discussion of Articles in Proceedings I. R. E. August, 1925 and April, 1926, above cited, Proceedings I. R. E. June, 1926.
“A similar result may be achieved by interposing a grounded conducting plate between the objects. Now the lines of force terminate on the plate and are conducted to the earth”. Hartman and Meagher, Shielding in Radio Receivers, Radio News, February, 1927, p. 988, 2 R. 69.
Brown, Developments in the Patent Daw as Effected by Adjudications, Tenth Anniversary number, United States Patents Quarterly, p. 9; Forkosch, The Economics of American Patent Daw, 17 New York University Daw Quarterly Review 157, 406.

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: 1