DISTRICT COURT OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS 
DIVISION OF ST. THOMAS AND ST. JOHN 
DENNIS KISSMAN and MARINA 
MANAGEMENT SERVICES INC., 
               Plaintiffs, 
v. 
ST. THOMAS MARINA CORPORATION 
and KOSEI OHNO, 
Defendants,  
 
and 
CROWN BAY MARINA, L.P., as a  
Nominal Defendant. 
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Case No. 3:18-cv-0018 
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ORDER 
 
BEFORE THE COURT is the Report and Recommendation and Order on Nominal 
Defendant Crown Bay Marina, L.P.’s (“CBM”) Motion for Leave to Join Additional Parties. 
(ECF No. 146.) For the reasons stated below, the Court will adopt the Report and 
Recommendation and affirm the Order.  
I.  FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 
 
Plaintiffs filed the instant action on February 22, 2018, in the Superior Court of the 
Virgin Islands, asserting claims for breach of contract, tortious interference, and defamation. 
On March 29, 2018, Defendants Kosei Ohno and St. Thomas Marina Corporation removed the 
action to this Court.  
 
CBM filed its motion for leave to join Nancy Kissman (“N. Kissman”), Jane Wherren 
(“Wherren”), and Marina Staffing, Inc. (“MSI”) as counter-defendants,  on July 7, 2020.1 (ECF 
No. 128.) The motion also purportedly sought to amend CBM’s counterclaim to add claims 
 
1 The motion did not specifically move to amend the counterclaim but was accompanied by an attached 
amended counterclaim. (ECF No. 128-3.) The Magistrate Judge generously construed this attachment as a 
motion to amend and analyzed it as such.  
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under the Virgin Islands Criminally Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“CICO”), 14 
V.I.C. § 600, et seq., and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 
U.S.C. § 1961, et seq. (ECF No. 128-3.)  
 
On September 9, 2020, the Magistrate Judge issued a thorough report and 
recommendation and order granting CBM’s motion to add N. Kissman, Wherren and MSI as 
counterclaim-defendants; directing CBM to file an amended counterclaim within five 
business days of the date of the Order; and ordering the counterclaim defendants to respond 
to the counterclaim within the time provided by the applicable rules. (ECF No. 146 at 12.) 
The Magistrate Judge further recommended that the motion, insofar as it sought  to add 
claims under RICO and CICO, be denied. Id.  Plaintiffs objected to the Order on September 23, 
2020. (ECF No. 158.) CBM objected to the Report and Recommendation on the same day. 
(ECF No. 159.)   
II. ANALYSIS 
 
Litigants may make "specific written objections" to a magistrate judge's report and 
recommendation "[w]ithin 14 days after being served with a copy of the recommended 
disposition." Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(2); see also 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) ("Within fourteen days 
after being served with a copy, any party may serve and file written objections to such 
proposed findings and recommendations as provided by rules of court."). The Court is 
required to review de novo  only those portions of the report and recommendation to which 
a party has objected. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b); EEOC v. City of Long Branch, 866 F.3d 93, 99 
(3d Cir. 2017). Where there are no objections, or such an objection is untimely, the district 
court reviews the report and recommendation for plain error. See, e.g., Henderson v. Carlson, 
812 F. 2d 874, 878 (3d Cir. 1987) ("While . . . [28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)] may not require, in the 
absence of objections, the district court to review the magistrate's report before accepting it, 
we believe that the better practice is for the district judge to afford some level of review to 
dispositive legal issues raised by the report.").  
 
Similarly, “[w]hen a pretrial matter [is] not dispositive of a party’s claim . . . [t]he 
district judge in the case must consider timely objections and modify or set aside any part of 
the order that is clearly erroneous or is contrary to law.” Fed R. Civ. P. 72(a).  “This standard 
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requires the District Court to review findings of fact for clear error and to review matters of 
law de novo.” EEOC v. City of Long Branch, 866 F.3d 93, 99 (3d Cir. 2017)(citing Haines v. 
Liggett Grp., Inc., 975 F.2d 81, 91 (3d Cir. 1992)). 
 
The Court has conducted a careful and independent review of the motion and the 
record in this matter, the Report and Recommendation and Order, and the parties’ objections 
thereto. Upon de novo review, it is hereby  
 
ORDERED that the Report and Recommendation is ADOPTED, ECF No. 146, and the 
Order of the Magistrate Judge is AFFIRMED; it is further  
 
ORDERED that the objections at ECF Nos. 158 and 159 are OVERRULED; it is 
further 
 
ORDERED that Nominal Defendant Crown Bay Marina L.P.’s Motion for Leave to 
Join Additional Parties, ECF No. 128, is GRANTED in part, in so far as it seeks to add Nancy 
Kissman, Jane Wherren, and Marina Staffing Inc. The motion is DENIED insofar as it seeks 
to add additional counterclaims.  
 
Dated: September 30, 2022  
 
/s/Robert A. Molloy  
 
 
 
  
 
 
ROBERT A. MOLLOY 
 
Chief Judge 
  
 
 
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