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:
Lewis N. COTLOW, Petitioner, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent.
No. 6, Docket 23399.
United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.
Argued Nov. 9, 1955.
Decided Dec. 12, 1955.
Abraham Kraditor, New York City, for petitioner.
H. Brian Holland, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ellis N. Slack, Hilbert P. Zarky, Stanley P. Wagman, Attys., Washington, D. C., for Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
Before CLARK, Chief Judge, and LUMBARD and WATERMAN, Circuit Judges.
WATERMAN, Circuit Judge.
Petitioner is a life insurance agent who has been engaged since 1927 in purchasing from other insurance agents their rights to renewal commissions on life insurance policies. In 1948 he filed his individual return on the cash receipts and disbursements basis. He reported no income on account of assigned renewal commissions that year although he received during the year the total sum of $45,500.70 from assigned commissions on 1,648 policies. Of this amount $23,-563.33 represented receipts over and above the aggregate original cost of the assignments to the petitioner, which cost had been recovered by him in the form of prior receipts. The Tax Court held, 22 T.C. 1019, that $22,694.50 (being the $23,563.33 less $868.83 representing un-recovered costs of policies lapsed during 1948) was taxable to the petitioner as ordinary income for 1948. Petitioner now seeks to upset this determination on this appeal. He raises three questions: (1) whether he realized any taxable income on the receipt by him of commissions on assigned renewals; (2) if so, whether the income received is taxable as ordinary income or long-term capital gain; and (3) whether he may deduct from such income the total cost of all assignments of renewal commissions purchased in 1948.
I
Petitioner performs a form of brokerage service for life insurance agents when he converts their rights to future income into immediate hard cash. He not only performs a discounting function, but, in addition, he undertakes the risk that by lapse or termination of a policy renewal commissions will cease. We find it difficult, under these circumstances, to view the petitioner’s earnings or profits arising from the performance of these services as other than taxable income. And petitioner relies on cases which have no application to this case. Lucas v. Earl, 1930, 281 U.S. 111, 50 S.Ct. 241, 74 L.Ed. 731; Helvering v. Horst, 1940, 311 U.S. 112, 61 S.Ct. 144, 85 L.Ed. 75; and Helvering v. Eubank, 1940, 311 U.S. 122, 61 S.Ct. 149, 85 L.Ed. 81. The principle of those cases is that a taxpayer, despite an intra-family gratuitous assignment of income, rights, remains taxable on the income which he earns by his personal services or which is derived from property which he owns. The rationale of the Horst case was that the receipt of income by the donee is an economic benefit or satisfaction to the donor, and therefore a realization of income by him. Where there is an arm’s length assignment .of income rights for a valuable consideration, it is clear that the assignor realizes only the amount of the consideration received, Rhodes v. Commissioner, 1941, 43 B.T.A. 780, affirmed 6 Cir., 1942, 131 F.2d 50, and the assignee is taxable for receipts in excess of this amount. See Blair v. Commissioner, 1937, 300 U.S. 5, 57 S.Ct. 330, 81 L.Ed. 465; G.C.M. 24849, 1946-1 Cum.Bull. 66, 67-68.
II
The petitioner further contends that even if the receipts of assigned renewal commissions in excess of their original cost do in fact constitute taxable income, such taxable income should be treated as a long-term capital gain. He cites no authority for this contention. 26 U.S.C.A. (I.R.C.1939) § 117 requires that'there be a “sale or exchange” of certain defined capital assets in order that income may receive capital gain treatment. The receipt of commissions is not a “sale or exchange”. And petitioner has never sold any of the renewal commissions purchased by him. See Fairbanks v. United States, 1939, 306 U.S. 436, 59 S.Ct. 607, 83 L.Ed., 855; Commissioner v. Starr Bros., 2 Cir., 1953, 204 F.2d 673; General Artists Corp. v. Commissioner, 2 Cir., 1953, 205 F.2d 360, certiorari denied, 1953, 346 U.S. 866, 74 S,Ct. 105, 98 L.Ed. 376; Guthrie v. Commissioner, 1940, 42 B.T.A. 696.
III
The taxpayer also contends that he should be allowed to deduct, against the profits realized in the current year, the cost of acquiring additional assignments of renewal commissions, which will start to yield payménts only in future years. The cost of acquiring additional assignments of' renewal commissions is a capital expenditure to be recovered by allocation against the income derived from the asset acquired; it is not, in its entirety, an “ordinary and necessary” business expense of the year of purchase. 26 U.S.C.A. (I.R.C.1939) §§ 23(a) (1), 23(i), 43; Treasury Regulations 111, § 29.41-3(2).
The decision of the Tax Court is affirmed.

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