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:
Ralph N. KEMP, Petitioner, v. NEWPORT NEWS SHIPBUILDING AND DRY DOCK COMPANY, and Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, United States Department of Labor, Respondents.
No. 86-1515.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued Oct. 10, 1986.
Decided Nov. 26, 1986.
Susan R. Stevick (Patten, Wornom & Watkins, Newport News, Va., on brief), for petitioner..
Lawrence P. Postol (Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson, Washington, D.C., on brief), for respondents.
Before SPROUSE and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge.
PER CURIAM:
Ralph Kemp appeals the judgment of the Benefits Review Board denying the award of attorney’s fees incurred prior to his employer’s controversion of his claim for disability compensation. We affirm.
On January 13, 1981, Kemp filed a claim under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act for compensation from Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company for hearing loss. The employer filed a notice of controversion on January 26, 1981. Before the hearing, the parties settled. The deputy commissioner awarded attorney’s fees for services rendered by Kemp’s counsel, including payment for three hours and five minutes of work performed prior to the date the employer controverted liability. The employer appealed the fee award for this time only. In an unpublished opinion, the Benefits Review Board modified the award, finding the employer liable only for fees incurred after it filed its notice of controversion.
The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act provides that an employer is liable for attorney’s fees if it controverts its liability on or before 30 days after receiving notice of the claim and the claimant thereafter utilizes the services of an attorney in a successful prosecution of the claim. 33 U.S.C. § 928(a). The Benefits Review Board has interpreted the statute to limit an employer’s liability to fees incurred after the employer receives notice of the claim and disputes it. See Baker v. Todd Shipyards Corp., 12 BRBS 309 (1980); Jones v. Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co., 11 BRBS 7 (1979).
Kemp argues that the Board’s interpretation ignores the fact that, as a practical matter, a potential claimant may require an attorney’s services to initiate a claim. He asserts that the Board’s limitation not only places an onerous burden on a claimant but also diminishes the compensation payable to a claimant in disregard of the Act. Kemp relies primarily on the dissents in Baker, 12 BRBS at 317, and Jones, 11 BRBS at 19 (Miller, Administrative Appeals Judge, dissenting).
We may set aside the Board’s decision on this matter only if it is “arbitrary, capricious or an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law.” 5 U.S.C. § 706. If the Board’s construction is “sufficiently reasonable,” it must be accepted, even if it is not the only reasonable construction or the construction this court would have reached if originally deciding the question. F.E.C. v. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Comm., 454 U.S. 27, 39, 102 S.Ct. 38, 46, 70 L.Ed.2d 23 (1981). Although the statute is ambiguous, the Board’s interpretation can be reconciled with the text and the legislative history. Furthermore, it is consistent with congressional intent that disputes be resolved in the first instance without the necessity of relying on assistance other than that provided by the Secretary of Labor. See Jones, 11 BRBS at 15-16.
AFFIRMED.
. The statute provides:
If the employer or carrier declines to pay any compensation on or before the thirtieth day after receiving written notice of a claim for compensation having been filed from the deputy commissioner, on the ground that there is no liability for compensation within the provisions of this chapter, and the person seeking benefits shall thereafter have utilized the services of an attorney at law in the successful prosecution of his claim, there shall be awarded, in addition to the award of compensation, in a compensation order, a reasonable attorney’s fee against the employer or carrier in an amount approved by the deputy commissioner, Board, or court, as the case may be, which shall be paid directly by the employer or carrier to the attorney for the claimant in a lump sum after the compensation order becomes final.
. 33 U.S.C. § 928(d) provides in part: “The amounts awarded against an employer or carrier as attorney's fees, costs, fees and mileage for witnesses shall not in any respect affect or diminish the compensation payable under this chapter.”
. 33 U.S.C. § 939(c)(1) provides in part:
The Secretary shall, upon request, provide persons covered by this chapter with information and assistance relating to the chapter’s coverage and compensation and the procedures for obtaining such compensation and including assistance in processing a claim. The Secretary may, upon request, provide persons covered by this chapter with legal assistance in processing a claim.
Referring to this section, the legislative history discloses: “It is intended that this assistance be all inclusive and enable the employee to receive the maximum benefits due to him without having to rely on outside assistance other than that provided by the Secretary." S. Rep. No. 92-1125, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. 16 (1972), reprinted in Committee Print: Legislative History of the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act Amendments of 1972 at 77.

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