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:
STAPP et al. v. UNITED STATES.
No. 9740.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
June 12, 1941.
Burt Barr, J. Forrest McCutcheon, and Maury Hughes, all of Dallas, Tex., and David H. Cannon, of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellants.
Clyde O. Eastus, U. S. Atty., and William P. Fonville, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Fort Worth, Tex., for appellee.
Before FOSTER, SIBLEY, and HUTCHESON, Circuit Judges.
FOSTER, Circuit Judge.
Appellants were charged in an indictment in one count with violating section 215 Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C.A. § 338, by having devised a scheme to defraud one H. S. Christian, and mailing and causing to be mailed a letter for the purpose of executing the scheme. The indictment did not charge intent to defraud any other person or the public. Appellants pleaded not guilty. The jury was waived and the case was submitted to the judge on a stipulation as to the facts. The Court found against appellants, entered judgments of conviction and imposed sentences of a fine of $1000 and imprisonment for five years as to each.
Error is assigned to the overruling of motions for acquittal on the ground that the facts did not show a violation of the act.
The material facts may be briefly stated. There is no doubt defendants entered into a scheme to defraud Christian by falsely inducing him to believe that defendant Stapp was ati agent of the Gulf Oil Corporation, authorized to buy an oil lease for that company from defendant Rudder for the price of $8,000 and that Stapp could buy the lease for $4,800. The proposal was made and accepted by Christian that he buy it from Rudder and in turn Stapp would buy it from him, for his principal, for $8,000, the profit of $3,200 to be divided between Christian and Stapp. The transaction was consummated at Pauls Valley National Bank, Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. Christian went there, taking with him a letter of credit issued by the Citizens Bank of Tyler, Texas, in the sum of $5,000. He bought the lease, which subsequently proved to be valueless, and drew a check in favor of the Pauls Valley Bank on the Tyler bank, in the sum of $4,800, for which the I’aids Valley bank issued its cashier’s check to Rudder in payment for the lease. Rudder accepted the cashier’s check, payable to himself, and the next day cashed that check with the Pauls Valley bank and received the money. Christian’s check on the Tyler Bank and the letter of credit were then sent by the Pauls Valley bank by railway express to its correspondent, Liberty National Bank at Oklahoma City, Okla., which bank forwarded it to Fort Worth National Bank of Fort Worth, Texas, for collection. The Fort Worth bank, in the regular course of its business, mailed Christian’s check and letter of credit, with an accompanying collection letter, to the Tyler bank. The mailing of this letter by the Fort Worth Bank at Fort Worth, Texas, is the basis of the indictment.
The law is well settled that if a person devises a scheme to defratid, in the execution of which a letter is mailed, the crime denounced by the statute is committed. It is immaterial whether the person or persons devising the scheme had intended to use the mails or whether anybody was actually defrauded. The mailing of the letter may be by an innocent agent, unconnected with the schemers. Hart v. United Stales, 5 Cir., 112 F.2d 128, and authorities cited therein. However, the mealing or causing the letter to be mailed is the crime, not merely devising the fraudulent scheme, and it is vital to the commission of the offense that the letter be in furtherance of the scheme.
In this case it is apparent the purpose of the scheme to defraud Christian had been completely accomplished when the Pauls Valley Bank accepted his check on the Tyler bank and the money was paid to Rudder. Christian was then and there defrauded. Up to that point the mails had not been used at all. Christian could not have legally done anything to stop payment of his check and was obligated to reimburse the Pauls Valley Bank for cashing it. While the mails were incidentally used, the defendants had no interest whatever in that transaction. None of the banks involved, was their agent, innocent or otherwise. The mailing of the letter from Fort Worth to Tyler was not in furtherance of the scheme and was not “caused” by them. The facts do not support the conviction. Spillers v. United States, 5 Cir., 47 F.2d 893. Cf. Hart v. United States, supra.
The judgments appealed from must be reversed.
Reversed and remanded.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 4