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:
PAYMER v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE (two cases). WESTRICH REALTY CORPORATION et al. v. SAME. RAYMEP REALTY CORPORATION, Inc., et al. v. SAME.
Nos. 17-20.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
July 2, 1945.
Sidney Paymer, of Jamaica, N. Y., for petitioners.
Samuel O. Clark, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., and Sewall Key, Robert N. Anderson, and S. Dee Hanson, Sp. Asst, to Atty. Gen., for respondent.
Before L. HAND, SWAN, and CHASE, Circuit Judges.
CHASE, Circuit Judge.
These four petitions, which were consolidated for hearing, require us to decide whether the 1938 net income of certain real estate was taxable to the petitioning corporations each of whom held the title to a part of it, or to the petitioning individuals who owned all the stock of the two corporations. And, if the corporations are taxable on the income, whether their failure to file income and excess profits returns made them liable for a penalty. The Commissioner determined that the corporations were taxable and also that the individuals, to whom the income was paid directly by the lessees of the property, were taxable on the amounts each received on the theory that what was done was the equivalent of dividend distributions by the corporations. He also assessed a penalty against each corporation. The Tax Court affirmed.
The individual petitioners are two brothers, who have been in partnership for many years under the name of Paymer Bros., owning partnership property which has in part been real estate that they improved and managed. Because Samuel had become the co-signer on a note and the guarantor of an account both of which were overdue in 1932, it was then thought that he might be sued by creditors and the partnership property attached. To avoid that, if possible, the partners in that year organized Raymep Realty Corp., Inc. and Westrich Realty Corp., two New York corporations which were given broad powers to own, manage and dispose of real estate and conveyed to each of them a parcel of income-producing real estate in New York City. The conveyance to Raymep was in 1932 and was made directly by the partners. That to Westrich was conveyed first by the partners to Paymer Bros. Realty Corp. Inc., a corporation wholly owned by them, and was then by it deeded to Westrich. In each instance, each of the two partners received half of the stock of the grantee in exchange for the property. The minutes of a meeting of directors and stockholders of each grantee held about the time the property was deeded to it contain the following statement:
“The said conveyance was and is made with the express understanding that the corporation is only to hold title to the property, the beneficial interest and profits to be in the individual stockholders and the management and control of the property to be exclusively theirs. It is understood and agreed that this corporation was only organized for the convenience of the shareholders in the management thereof.”-
After these meetings neither corporate petitioner held any others. Neither ever elected any officers or directors after Samuel was elected president and Joseph treasurer at the organization meeting, ever had any office or bank account, or collected any income. The two partners managed the real estate conveyed as above and collected the income, paid the expenses, deposited the money received in the bank account of Paymer Bros., and used the net profits of the real estate as they pleased, treating that property as the partnership property it had formerly been. The leases existing on the real estate when the .conveyances were made were not assigned to the corporations and nothing was done by Westrich in respect to the property held in its name. That is not true, however, as to Raymep for a loan of $50,000 was obtained by it in 1938 and as part security for the loan it assigned to the lender all the lessor’s rights, profits and interest in two leases on the property and covenanted that they were in full force and effect and that it was the sole lessor. Capital stock tax returns were filed by both Raymep and Westrich for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1938. During 1938 the two partners received gross rentals amounting to $18,999.86 from the property to which Raymep held the title and $3300. from that whose title was held by Westrich.
The petitioners, acting on the advice of their accountant, included the 1938 income from the property held by these corporations in their own partnership information return for that year, in which they also included the incomes and expenses of two other corporations wholly owned by them. The net income so reported was treated as the net income of the partners in their returns.
The petitioners now contend that Raymep and Westrich were mere “dummies” which held the legal title to property owned by the two individual petitioners and that both corporations are to be disregarded for income tax purposes. As a general rule a corporation is a taxpayer separate and distinct from its stockholders. New Colonial Ice Co. v. Helvering, 292 U.S. 435, 442, 54 S.Ct. 788, 78 L.Ed. 1348. And this applies to a corporation wholly owned by one stockholder. Burnet v. Commonwealth Improvement Co., 287 U.S. 415, 53 S.Ct. 198, 77 L.Ed. 399. But there are exceptions and the corporate form will be disregarded where it serves no business purpose and is but a sham. Gregory v. Helvering, 293 U.S. 465, 55 S.Ct. 266, 79 L.Ed. 596, 97 A.L.R. 1355. So, too, a taxpayer may gain the advantage of doing his own business through a wholly owned corporation if he pleases, but the treasury may disregard the separate corporate entity where it serves but as a shield against taxation and treat the one who actually may take the benefit of the income as the owner of the property which produces it and tax him accordingly. Higgins v. Smith, 308 U.S. 473, 60 S.Ct. 355, 84 L.Ed. 406. Yet the treasury may treat a corporation as a separate taxable entity when its organization “is followed by the carrying on of business by the corporation.” Moline Properties v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 319 U.S. 436, 439, 63 S.Ct. 1132, 1134, 87 L.Ed. 1499.
We think that Raymep was active enough to justify holding that it did engage in business in 1938. The absence of books, records and offices and the failure to hold corporate meetings are not decisive on that question. Though Raymep was organized solely to deter creditors of one of the partners, it apparently was impossible or impracticable to use it solely for that purpose when it became necessary or desirable to secure the above mentioned loan in a substantial amount. There was, to be sure, less business activity than was shown in Sheldon Building Corporation v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 7 Cir., 118 F.2d 835, but we think enough did appear to make the principles applied in that case applicable to Raymep and that the decision of'the Tax Court should be affirmed as to the taxability of that corporation. Compare, Watson v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 2 Cir., 124 F.2d 437; Vim Securities Corporation v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 2 Cir., 130 F.2d 106, and Palcar Real Estate Co. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 8 Cir., 131 F.2d 210.
Westrich, however, was at all times but a passive dummy which did nothing but take and hold the title to the real estate conveyed to it. It served no business purpose in connection with the property and was intended to serve only as a blind to deter the creditors of one Of the partners. It was but a sham to be disregarded for tax purposes. Gregory v. Helvering, supra. See, also, 112 West 59th Street Corporation v. Helvering, 62 App.D.C. 350, 68 F.2d 397; and North Jersey Title Ins. Co. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 3 Cir, 84 F.2d 898.
There remains the question of the assessment of the penalty against Raymep, that against Westrich being necessarily erroneous under our holding that it was not a taxpayer in 1938. While it is true that ignorance of the law will not excuse the failure of a taxpayer to file a return, no penalty may be imposed where a reasonable cause • for the failure is shown. Girard Investment Co. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 3 Cir., 122 F.2d 843; Hartford-Connecticut Trust Co. v. Eaton, 2 Cir., 34 F.2d 128. The applicable statute, § 291 of the Revenue Act of 1938, 26 U.S.C.A. Int. Rev. Code, § 291, does not make the imposition of the penalty for failure to file a return mandatory but provides for its imposition “unless it is shown that such failure is due to reasonable cause and not due to willful neglect.” Raymep admittedly filed no returns and consequently had the burden to prove that the failure was excusable within the clause of the statute just quoted. T.R. 101, Art. 291-1. It was held in Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Lane-Wells Co., 321 U.S. 219, 225, 64 S.Ct. 511, 514, 88 L.Ed. 684, that, “The question is one of fact in the first instance for the Board’s determination. Dobson v. Commissioner [of Internal Revenue], 320 U.S. 489, 64 S.Ct.239 [88 L.Ed. 248.]” The Tax Court considered the evidence introduced on that subject and determined that reasonable cause for the failure had not been shown. Such a decision turns upon the particular circumstances in the case presented rather than on any “generalizing principle” and therefore presents no reviewable issue. Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Estate of Edward Bedford, 65 S.Ct. 1157.
The income taxes of the individual petitioners will be adjusted on the remand, and as no difficulty in doing that is now to be foreseen, nothing is now said on that subject.
Decision affirmed in part and reversed in part, and cause remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.

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: 1