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:
MARYLAND CASUALTY COMPANY, Appellant, v. Scott Nelson BURLEY, Jr., Donald Pete Mosteller and National Indemnity Company, Appellees.
No. 9815.
United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.
Argued April 6, 1965.
Decided April 29, 1965.
Wm. Rosenberger, Jr., Lynchburg, Va., for appellant.
Henry M. Sackett, Jr., Lynchburg, Va. (Williams, Robertson & Sackett, Lynch-burg, Va., on brief) for appellee National Indemnity Co.
Before SOBELOFF and BOREMAN, Circuit Judges, and STANLEY, District Judge.
SOBELOFF, Circuit Judge:
This proceeding was instituted to obtain a judgment declaring which of two insurance companies is obligated to assume the burden of defense and liability for any judgment in respect of suits growing out of damages sustained in an automobile accident involving Scott Burley, Jr.
On August 10, 1963, Burley, while operating with consent an automobile owned by Brockman Chevrolet, Inc., collided in Virginia with a car driven by Donald Mosteller. Suit was brought against Burley by the mother and next friend of Donald Mosteller for personal injuries suffered by him in the accident. Maryland Casualty Company, the insurer of Brockman, brought this declaratory judgment action to determine whether it, or National Indemnity Company, is obligated to defend the suit. National is the insurer of the members of the Burley household.
In the meantime, as often happens in such situations, neither insurance company was willing to assume the defense of the action for damages. Burley was compelled to advance the cost of defending the suit, .and although the injured plaintiff has recovered judgment the insurers decline payment to him while they litigate their dispute in the federal courts.
Maryland issued a Garage Liability insurance policy to Brockman in which it agreed to pay all personal injury claims arising out of the use of any automobile owned by Brockman for the purpose of garage operations. An endorsement attached to the policy provides that the policy does not insure any driver, unless a member of a specified class, who has other valid and collectible automobile liability insurance available to him. If it were not for this limiting endorsement the policy’s coverage would clearly extend to Burley in an amount sufficient to cover all liabilities arising from the above accident.
Under Virginia law every auto liability insurance policy must contain an “omnibus clause,” that is,
“a provision insuring the named insured, and any other person responsible for the use of or using the motor vehicle with the consent * * * of the named insured, against liability for * * * injury * * * ” Code of Virginia, § 38.1-381 (1950).
This provision has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia in a somewhat analogous, but perhaps distinguishable, case to require that the “same coverage” be extended to any authorized person driving the insured car as is extended to the named insured. Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co. v. Indemnity Ins. Co., 186 Va. 204, 213, 42 S.E.2d 298, 302 (1947). According to the terms of Maryland’s policy, however, the permissive driver, unlike members of the group specifically mentioned, is covered only when there is no other collectible and valid insurance available. The validity of the endorsement which makes this distinction between the named group and the permissive driver is in issue here. National contends that this provision is invalid as in conflict with section 38.1-381, above quoted, despite the fact that the State Corporation Commission has approved the form of endorsement here in question.
As a federal court operating under the doctrine of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938), we would be bound to follow any interpretation given this section of the Virginia Code by the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia, but that court has never ruled explicitly on the validity of such an “escape” clause. It is regrettable that two insurance companies operating in Virginia should avoid resort to the only court that is empowered to give a final authoritative answer to this question of statutory construction. We note the frequency of litigation of this character in the federal courts when the state forum is the more appropriate one.
A state trial court, however, has ruled that the clause is void because it violates § 38.1-381, Code of Virginia (1950). State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co. v. Universal Underwriters Ins. Co., Charlottesville Corporation Court, July 22, 1964. While in the absence of a ruling by the highest court of the state we are not bound to follow this decision, we nevertheless join the District Court in deferring to the only available judicial interpretation of Virginia law and adopt it for the purposes of this case. We think this interpretation is consistent with the intimation in the Lumbermens Mutual case, cited above. While the statute is not concerned with how the insurance companies divide the risk among themselyes, it would not seem reasonable to interpret it as permitting an insurer to avoid liability altogether, an approach that could result in the injured party receiving less than full compensation.
Affirmed.
. “ * * * any employee, director or stockholder of the named insured, any partner therein and any resident of the same household as the named insured, such employee, director, stockholder or partner.”

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