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 "the federal government, its agencies, and officials". 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 v. BOWDEN et al.
No. 4035.
United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.
April 28, 1950.
Benjamin Forman, Atty., Dept, of Justice, Washington, D. C. (H. G. Morison, Asst. Atty. Gen., Paul A. Sweeney, Atty., Dept, of Justice, Washington, D. C., and Scott M. Matheson, U. S. Atty., Salt Lake City, Utah, were with him on the brief), for the United States.
No appearance for appellees.
Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and HUXMAN and MURRAH, Circuit Judges.
PHILLIPS, Chief Judge.
On August 23, 1949, the clerk of the court below entered a default judgment against the Bowdens in favor of the United States for $153.93, being the balance due on a promissory note. On August 27, 1949, the clerk taxed costs against the Bowdens, but did not include the attorney’s docket fee of $20 claimed by the United States. The District Court, on motion to retax the costs, refused to tax the attorney’s docket fee.
28 U.S.C.A. § 1923 in part provides:
“(a) Attorney’s and proctor’s docket fees in courts of the United States may be taxed as costs as follows:
“$20 on trial or final hearing in civil, criminal or admiralty cases, except that in cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction where the libellant recovers less than $50 the proctor’s docket fee shall be $10;
“S20 in admiralty appeals involving not over $1,000;
“$50 in admiralty appeals involving not over $5,000;
“$100 in admiralty appeals involving more than $5,000;
“$5 on discontinuance of a civil action; * * *.”
The former statute, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 571 and 572, in part read:
“§ 571. Fees to be taxed. The following fees and no other shall be taxed and allowed to attorneys, solicitors, and proctors in the courts of the United States, and to district attorneys, except in cases otherwise expressly provided by law. * * *
“§ 572. Attorneys, solicitors, and proctors. On a trial before a jury, in civil or criminal causes or before referees, or on a final hearing in equity or admiralty, a docket fee of $20: Provided, That in cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, where the libellant recovers less than $50, the docket fee of his proctor shall be hut $10. * * *”
Thus it will be seen that in the revision, the words "may be taxed” are substituted for the words "shall be taxed” in the former statute. (Italics ours.)
The use of the word “may” in a statute will be construed as permissive and' to vest discretionary power, unless the context of the statute clearly indicates a purpose to use it in a mandatory sense.
In proceedings in equity, the allowance and imposition of costs is a matter of discretion.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A., abolished the distinction between law and equity and provided for one form of action, to be known as a civil action. Rule 54(d) of such rules provides: “Costs. Except when express provision therefor is made either in a statute of the United States or in these rules, costs shall be allowed as of course to the prevailing party unless the court otherwise directs; * * * ”
We are of the opinion that the revisers substituted the word “may” advisedly with the purpose of bringing the statute into harmony with the equity rule and Rule 54(d) and made the taxation of statutory costs a matter within the discretion of the court. The use of the word “shall” in the exception clause in § 1923 is not, in our opinion, significant. It simply prescribes the different amounts of costs, if costs in the discretion of the court are to be taxed.
While we entertain no doubt that the entry of the default judgment was a final hearing within the meaning of the statute, we conclude that the taxation of costs is a matter vested in the sound discretion of the trial court.
The cause will be remanded with instructions to the trial court to vacate the order denying the motion to retax the costs and to determine in the exercise of its discretion whether an attorney’s docket fee should be taxed as costs against the defendants below.
. Mayor v. Board of Land Com’rs of Wyoming, 64 Wyo. 409, 192 P.2d 403, 411; State ex rel. Hubbard v. Northwald, 150 Neb. 894, 36 N.W.2d 282, 283, 284; Fleishman v. Kremer, 179 Md. 536, 20 A.2d 169, 171; Lansdown v. Faris, 8 Cir., 66 F.2d 939, 941; Western Distributing Co. v. Public Service Commission, D.C.Kan., 58 F.2d 239, 241.
. Kittredge v. Race, 92 U.S. 116, 121, 23 L.Ed. 488; Newton v. Consolidated Gas Co., 265 U.S. 78, 83, 44 S.Ct. 481, 68 L.Ed. 909; ex parte Peterson, 253 U.S. 300, 317, 40 S.Ct. 543, 64 L.Ed. 919; See, also, Buck v. Bilkie, 9 Cir., 63 F.2d 447.
. See Fishgold v. Sullivan Dry Dock & Repair Corp., 328 U.S. 275, 284, 66 S.Ct. 1105, 90 L.Ed. 1230, 167 A.L.R. 110; Moore’s Federal Practice Under the New Federal Rules, Vol. 3, § 54.04.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officialss"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1