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 "natural persons". 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. BURDEN, SMITH & CO.
Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
June 22, 1929.
No. 5523.
William A. Bootle, U. S. Atty., of Maeon, Ga., D. A. Taylor, Sp. Atty., Burean of Int. Rev., of Washington, D. C. (C. M. Charest, Gen. Counsel, Bureau of Int. Rev., of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for the United States.
Geo. S. Jones and C. Baxter Jones, both of Maeon, Ga. (Jones, Jones & Johnston, of Maeon, Ga., and Charles M. Cork, of Maeon, Ga., on the brief), for appellee.
Before WALKER, BRYAN, and FOSTER, Circuit Judges.
FOSTER, Circuit Judge.
In this case the material facts stipulated by the parties and found by the District Court are these:
May 23, 1919, appellee made return for its 1918 taxes. August 30,1919, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue assessed their 1918 income and excess profits taxes at $48,-882.60. November 1, 1919, appellee filed a claim for abatement of $6,526.98, and January 28, 1920, made claim for a credit of $704.80, overpayment on its 1917 taxes. These two amounts, totaling $7,231.78, were deducted from the payment on account of the 1918 taxes. The claims for abatement and credit were rejected. On August 10, 1925, payment of $7,189.93 principal and $1,-006.59 interest was exacted by duress over appellee’s protest that it was not liable because the claim was barred by the statute of limitations. There was no agreement for a stay or suspension of payment. On these facts the District Court rendered judgment in fa/vor of appellee in the sum of $8,196.52.
Appellant concedes that the collection of the tax when made was barred by the statute of limitation in accordance with the opinion of the Supreme Court in Bowers v. New York & Albany Lighterage Co., 273 U. S. 346, 47 S. Ct. 389, 71 L. Ed. 676, and that prior to the passage of the revenue act of 1928, appellee could ha-ve maintained an action to recover the tax, but asserts that by reason of the provisions of sections 607, 611 of said act (26 USCA §§ 2607, 2611) the District Court erred in rendering judgment for appellee. These sections follow:
“See. 607. Effect of Expiration of Period of Limitation against United States.— Any tax (or any interest, penalty, additional amount, or addition to such tax) assessed or paid (whether before or after the enactment of this Act) after the expiration of the period of limitation properly applicable thereto shall be considered an overpayment and shall be credited or refunded to the taxpayer if claim therefor is filed within the period of limitation for filing such claim.”
“See. 611. Collections Stayed by Claim in Abatement. — If any internal-revenue tax (or any interest, penalty, additional amount, or addition to such tax) was, within the period of limitation properly applicable thereto, assessed prior to June 2, 1924, and if a claim in abatement was filed, with or without bond, and if the collection of any part thereof was stayed, then the payment of such part (made before or within one.year after the enactment of this Act) shall not be considered as an overpayment under the provisions of section 607, relating to payments made after the expiration of the period of limitation on assessment and collection.”
It is admitted that standing alone section 607 is in favor of appellee, but it is argued that section 611 must be given a retroactive effect in the sense that it refers to past transactions; that Congress intended the suspension of the statute of limitations as to every claim for abatement pending for adjustment where the assessment was made any time prior to June 2, 1924; and that to this end Congress used the word “stayed” in section 611 as synonymous with “delayed.” In support of this contention reliance is had on the report of the House Ways and Means Committee, No. 2, of the 70th Congress, First Session, presenting the bill.
It is unnecessary to quote the language of the report. Reports of committees of the House and Senate may be looked to as aids in construing ambiguous or conflicting terms of a statute, but they cannot be taken as giving it a meaning not fairly within its words. St. Louis, Iron Mountain & S. R. Co. v. Craft, 237 U. S. 648, 35 S. Ct. 704, 59 L. Ed. 1160.
Taxing statutes are to be interpreted liberally in favor of the taxpayer. Words of the statute are to be given their plain meaning. “Stayed,” in a legal sense, is not interchangeable with “delayed.” It connotes some act on the part of the taxpayer which would morally or legally tie the hands of the Commissioner and prevent collection of the tax. The mere filing of a claim for abatement without more could not possibly have that effect.
That the Treasury Department did not consider that the filing of a claim for abatement operated as a stay or prevented collection of the tax, prior to the adoption of the Act of 1928, is clearly shown by the provisions of article 1032 of regulations 62 of the Treasury Department, whieli is frankly quoted in the brief, as follows: “The filing of a elaim for abatement does not necessarily operate as a suspension of the collection of the tax or make it any less the duty of the collector to exercise due diligence to prevent the collection of the tax being jeopardized. He should, if he considers it necessary, collect the tax and leave the taxpayer to his remedy by a elaim for refund.”
Our attention has been called by appellant to the case of Huntley, Collector, v. H. S. Gile and W. T. Jenks, decided, since this case was submitted, by the Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit, May 27, 1929, 32 F.(2d) 857. That ease is not in point, as it was stipulated that collection of the tax had been stayed pending a decision by the Commissioner on a elaim for abatement.
We need not concern ourselves with the questions as to whether the above-quoted sections of the Revenue Act of 1928 have a retroactive effect and are constitutional as applied to this case. Giving them full effect the ease is with appellee. We concur in the conclusion of the District Court.
The record presents no reversible error.
Affirmed.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 0