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:
THE COASTWISE. THE FORT ARMSTRONG. COASTWISE TRANSP. CORPORATION v. CHARLES NELSON CO. et al.
No. 162.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Jan. 8, 1934.
Kirlin, Campbell, Hickox, Keating & Mc-Grann, of New York City (Robert S. Ers-kine and Henry P. Elliott, both of New York City, of counsel), for appellants.
Duncan & Mount, of New York City (H. W. Dieek, Jr., and Charles R. Millett, both of New York City, of counsel), for appellee.
Before L. HAND, SWAN, and AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
The collision occurred in the Elizabeth river near Norfolk, Va., on the night of August 9, 1929. The Fort Armstrong left the Army Base piers and proceeded through a channel leading to the main channel into which she turned to go down the river. To make her turn to starboard and get straightened out in the 600-foot dredged channel necessitated backing, and while she was engaged in this maneuver the Coastwise, which was bound down the river from Lambert’s Point, came up with her and the port bow of the Coastwise eame into contact with the stem of the Fort Armstrong. No damage was suffered by the latter, but the bow of the Coast-wise was injured. The District Court held both vessels at fault, the Coastwise for not having held back sufficiently to keep out of the way, the Fort Armstrong for having continued her backing movement when it should have been plain to her navigators that there was a risk of collision.
The fault of the Coastwise is plain. She saw the Fort Armstrong when more than a mile away, knew that she would have to “back and fill” to get straightened out in the channel, and intended to follow her down the liver. Nevertheless the Coastwise kept on at full speed for ten minutes, then a.t half speed for two minutes, then stopped her engines for one minute, had them half astern for one minute, and finally put them full astern only one minute before the collision. These engine movements are taken from her log, and discredit the story of more careful navigation to which her witnesses testified. If the Fort Armstrong be considered as on a steady course, despite having to back to make her turn, then under the rules applicable to an overtaking situation, the Coastwise was bound to keep out of the way. But it is unnecessary to decide whether the Fort Armstrong was on a steady eourse; if the situation be viewed as one of special circumstances, the Coastwise fares no better. She knew that the Fort Armstrong would have to back to make her turn. Just how far she might have to back was a matter of conjecture. The Coastwise should have kept far enoug-h away to allow her necessary freedom of action. She failed to do so, assuming apparently that the other vessel would get straightened out more quickly than she did. Indeed, when the Coastwise first put her engines full speed astern she was already within hailing distance, and her master shouted to the Fort Arm-strong to go ahead. Moreover, she did not have a full head of steam, which made it the more necessary for her to avoid getting into close quarters. Her fault is glaring,
Fault on the part of the Fort Armstrong can be predicated only upon a finding that she backed after she should have known that to do so would endanger the Coastwise. In turning to a consideration of this question it is appropriate to note that the testimony of all the witnesses was taken by deposition so that the trial judge was in no better position than are we to draw conclusions as to negligence. The Kalfari, 277 F. 391, 399 (C. C. A. 2); The Africa Maru, 54 F.(2d) 265, 266 (C. C. A. 2). It is difficult, especially at night, for a navigator to estimate the speed of another vessel coming up astern. Those in charge of the navigation of the Fort, Armstrong could reasonably expect the approaching vessel to accommodate herself to a backing movement the necessity for which had long been obvious. They did not know, and cannot be charged with notice, that the Coast-wise was not carrying a full head of steam and hence was unable to cheek her way as quickly as she might otherwise have done. Even if she was only four or five hundred feet astern when the Fort Armstrong sounded her second backing signal, we are not satisfied that danger was apparent to her navigators. If she had any sternway at all at the moment of collision it was slight, and her pilot and captain say that her engines had been working ahead for about a minute. This is a ease to which is applicable the principle that when the fault of one vessel is gross and the fault of the other doubtful, the former should bear the whole loss. The City of New York, 147 U. S. 72, 85, 13 S. Ct. 211, 37 L. Ed. 84; The Ludvig Holberg, 157 U. S. 60, 71, 15 S. Ct. 477, 39 L. Ed. 620; The M. J. Rudolph, 292 F. 740, 743 (C. C. A. 2).
Accordingly, the decree is reversed and the libel dismissed, with costs.

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: 99