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:
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Edgar L. SHIELDS, Appellant.
No. 80-1944.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted Feb. 12, 1981.
Decided Feb. 26, 1981.
Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied April 7, 1981.
Lewis, Rice, Tucker, Allen & Chubb by John C. Shapleigh, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant Edgar L. Shields.
Robert D. Kingsland, U. S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., Larry D. Hale, Asst. U. S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., for appellee.
Before LAY, Chief Judge, and STEPHENSON and ARNOLD, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Edgar L. Shields appeals his conviction on two counts, for (1) wilfull failure to timely file a 1977 federal income tax return in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7203, and (2) for wilfully furnishing his employer with false and fraudulent federal income tax withholding information in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7205. We affirm.
Shields, an aerospace engineer earned income of $16,416.75 during 1976 which resulted in a federal income tax liability of $2,204. During 1977 he earned $18,164.71 in income, including $1,900 during January and February, resulting in a $2,933 tax liability. He filed no federal income tax return for 1977 and on May 11, 1977, he filed Form W-4E, Exemption from Federal Income Tax Withholding Certificate, certifying, under penalty of perjury, that he incurred no federal tax liability in 1976 and anticipated none in 1977. Previously, defendant filed amended federal income tax returns for the years 1968-75, inclusive, showing no income for those years. In a letter attached to his 1975 return, Shields stated that after long study he has learned that nowhere in the Internal Revenue Code is the term “dollars” or the symbol “$” defined, the only definition in any statute is in the Coinage Act of 1792 which defines dollars in terms of “lawful money,” such as 412V2 grams of silver, paper money since 1968 is not payable on demand in “lawful money,” and “new coins” are no longer made of “lawful money.” Shields concluded that he had received no “dollars” as wages and, thus, had earned no “dollars” in income. The Internal Revenue Service mailed two letters to Shields, both dated September 17, 1976, in response to his 1973 and 1974 amended returns informing him that his conclusion was not acceptable. Again, in a letter dated June 15, 1978, the IRS informed Shields that his position was erroneous.
Congress has declared federal reserve notes to be legal tender, 31 U.S.C. § 392, and federal reserve notes are taxable dollars, United States v. Rifen, 577 F.2d 1111, 1112 (8th Cir. 1978); United States v. Daly, 481 F.2d 28, 30 (8th Cir. 1973). Shields argues, however, that he acted on a good faith belief as to the definition of “dollars” and that the government failed to prove that he “wilfully” violated Sections 7203 and 7205. Wilfullness under the IRC only requires proof of an intentional violation of a known legal duty. United States v. Pomponio, 429 U.S. 10, 12-13, 97 S.Ct. 22, 23-24, 50 L.Ed.2d 12 (1976); United States v. Francisco, 614 F.2d 617 (8th Cir. 1980). Evidence of Shields’ prior filing and tax paying history, and IRS attempts to explain the legal requirements to him are sufficient to sustain the jury’s finding that Shields was aware of his legal obligations imposed by the tax laws and intentionally chose not to comply with them. See United States v. Francisco, 614 F.2d 617, 618 (8th Cir. 1980); United States v. Rifen, 577 F.2d 1111, 1113 (8th Cir. 1978).
Shields also challenges the exclusion of evidence by the district court. Upon review of the record, we find no abuse of discretion and no merit to this claim. We also find the other issues presented to this court to be frivolous.
Judgment affirmed.

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