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:
Thomas L. REDWINE, Appellant, v. Eugene M. ZUCKERT, Secretary of the Air Force, Appellee.
No. 17203.
United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.
Argued Jan. 17, 1963.
Decided April 4, 1963.
See also 28 F.R.D. 29.
Mr. Samuel L. Phillips, Washington, D. C., for appellant.
Mr. Robert D. Devlin, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Messrs. David G. Acheson, U. S. Atty., Frank Q. Nebeker and Mrs. Ellen Lee Park, Asst. U. S. Atiys., were on the brief, for appellee. Mr. Nathan J. Paulson, Asst. U. S. Atty., at the time the record was filed, also entered an appearance for appellee.
Before Bazelon, Chief Judge, and Fahy and Bastían, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
The District Court granted appellee’s motion for summary judgment in appellant’s suit for declaratory relief from his “undesirable discharge” from the United States Air Force.
While on “remote duty” in Alaska as a member of the United States Air Force, appellant pleaded guilty to a civilian charge of burglary for which he was sentenced to prison for two and one-half years. Thereafter, and without hearing, the Air Force issued an “undesirable discharge.” Appellant subsequently requested and received a hearing at which he was represented by counsel and in which the discharge was affirmed.
Appellant contends that due process required a hearing prior to discharge. In the context of this case, at least, we think not, since appellant makes no claim that he was prejudiced by the fact that his hearing was held subsequent to discharge.
Appellant also challenges the validity of his guilty plea in the civilian court, upon which his undesirable discharge was predicated. He claims that it was not made “understandingly,” because he was not informed of all the consequences of the plea including the likelihood of an undesirable disehai'ge. But an Air Force discharge proceeding is not the proper place for such an attack. Moreover', we are aware of no authority holding that a plea of guilty is “understandingly” made only if the defendant is informed of all the possible non-criminal consequences which may flow from it.
Appellant’s other claims of error are without merit.
Affirmed.
. A.F.R. 39-22, Sept. 23, 1953, states that “the general policy will be to discharge an airman with an undesirable discharge under this Regulation where the airman has been convicted by a civil court of an offense punishable by death or imprisonment for more than one year.”
. Appellant says that counsel and voluntary witnesses are obtainable at Government expense in pre-discharge hearings but not in post-discharge hearings. Assuming arguendo that this is so, we need not decide whether this would require a pre-discharge hearing since appellant was, in fact, represented by counsel at his post-discharge hearing, and he does not claim that he was prejudiced by any difficulty in obtaining witnesses.

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