Judge Katherine Forrest
A class action—last amended on Oct. 16, 2012, to add another 16 plaintiffs—against Waterman under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(h), general maritime law and the Shipowner’s Liability Convention, sought overtime and unearned wages plaintiffs claimed entitlement to after suffering illness or injury while working on Waterman’s ships. District court denied plaintiffs’ Feb. 11, 2013, motion to certify a class of seamen who “were not paid the overtime wages that they would have otherwise earned under Defendant’s employment in the service of its vessels.” The proposed class comprised 32 individuals—below the presumptive 40-member threshold set by the Second Circuit in 1995 in Consolidated Rail v. Town of Hyde Park—where six such members have already been named as plaintiffs and plaintiffs’ counsel has had the names and addresses of all but two proposed class members for more than nine months. After applying relevant provisions of the relevant bargaining agreement between Waterman and the Seafarer’s International Union—and the relevant three year limitation period detailed in Cunningham v. Interlake Steamship—the court determined that plaintiffs failed to satisfy Rule 23(a)’s numerosity requirement.
