UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 06-2051

WILLIAM G. MEREDITH,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

and

OAKLEY TANK LINES, INCORPORATED, as Subrogee

of William G. Meredith,

Petitioner,

versus

HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL, INCORPORATED,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern

District of Virginia, at Richmond. Henry E. Hudson, District

Judge. (3:06-cv-00148-HEH)

Submitted: August 6, 2007 Decided: August 23, 2007

Before MOTZ and SHEDD, Circuit Judges, and WILKINS, Senior Circuit

Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
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David L. Epperly, Jr., EPPERLY & FOLLIS, P.C., Richmond, Virginia,

for Appellant. John D. Epps, Alexandra B. Cunningham, HUNTON &

WILLIAMS LLP, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
1Section 65.2-302(A) of the Act provides:

When any person (referred to in this section

as “owner”) undertakes to perform or execute

any work which is part of his trade, business

or occupation and contracts with any other

person (referred to in this section as

“subcontractor”) for the execution or

performance by or under such subcontractor of

the whole or any part of the work undertaken

by such owner, the owner shall be liable to

pay to any worker employed in the work any

compensation under this title which he would

have been liable to pay if the worker had been

immediately employed by him [thus rendering

the worker a “statutory employee” of the

owner].

The Act excludes all other rights and remedies of such employees,

at common law or otherwise, on account of such injury. See Va.

Code Ann. § 65.2-307.

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PER CURIAM:

William G. Meredith appeals the district court’s

dismissal pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1), of his personal

injury tort action against Honeywell International, Inc.

(“Honeywell”), on the ground that the action was barred by the

exclusivity provision of the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act,

Code § 65.2-100 et seq. (the “Act”).1

 The district court ruled

that at the time of his injury, Meredith was a statutory employee

of Honeywell and, therefore, his sole right and remedy was under

the Act. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

The material facts of this case are undisputed.

Honeywell is in the business of manufacturing various products,
2

Caprolactam is a chemical intermediate used by Honeywell in

the manufacture of nylon.

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chemicals, and materials, including caprolactam2 which is

transported from Honeywell’s Hopewell, Virginia plant to its Irmo,

South Carolina plant. Honeywell contracted with Oakley Tank

Services (“Oakley”), other independent companies, and had its own

drivers hauling caprolactam between plants. Specifically,

Honeywell contracted with Oakley to transport caprolactam from its

Hopewell plant to its Irmo plant, and then to return to the

Hopewell plant, occasionally carrying a load of “wash water” from

which Hopewell would recover additional caprolactam. Both

Honeywell drivers and contracted drivers followed the same

procedures when loading caprolactam from the Honeywell plant. A

driver parked his truck at a loading station, placed his keys in a

lock box, and provided paperwork to a Honeywell control operator

located in a control room. The driver could then wait in the

control room while the control operator loaded the truck with

caprolactam. Upon loading the truck and providing the driver with

completed documentation, the control operator would unlock the lock

box, allowing the driver to retrieve his keys and drive the truck

out of the plant. Meredith was a truck driver employed by Oakley

and, at the time of his accident, was working the run to transport

caprolactam from the Honeywell Hopewell plant to its Irmo plant.

Meredith followed the above-outlined procedure and, after
3

We note that it was an essential part of the entire process

of hauling the material that the driver complete his paperwork and

wait while his tanker truck was filled with caprolactam. While

Meredith contends that he ceased being Honeywell’s statutory

(continued...)

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presenting his paperwork to the control operator, sat in a chair in

the Hopewell plant control room which collapsed beneath him,

resulting in his alleged injuries.

The sole issue on appeal is whether the district court

erred in dismissing Meredith’s case pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P.

12(b)(1), based on its holding that Honeywell was Meredith’s

statutory employer. In support of his position, Meredith asserts

that: (1) he was not engaged in Honeywell’s trade, business, or

occupation; (2) he was an independent contractor; and (3) Honeywell

was not his statutory employer under the normal work test. 

We find that the district court correctly held that

Meredith’s action was barred by the Act. It is undisputed that the

transportation of the caprolactam between Honeywell’s Hopewell and

Irmo plants was an essential part of the work that Honeywell

performed in the manufacture and processing of caprolactam.

Meredith’s job was to effect that transportation. At the time of

his injury, his truck was being unloaded and prepared for the

return trip, he had just presented required documentation to the

control operator, and then attempted to sit in the chair located in

the control room. The district court found that neither the act of

sitting,3 nor the fact that Meredith was not responsible for the
3(...continued)

employee while his truck was being refilled from the time he

presented his paperwork until the time he fell, he has offered no

case law to support such a proposition. Indeed, the contention

that Meredith ceased to be a statutory employee of Honeywell while

he was awaiting the filling of his truck is as frivolous as would

be a contention that he ceased being a statutory employee had he

been injured while stopping to catch his breath on his way to

submitting his paperwork, or during the time he was exiting his

truck after pulling into the Hopewell facility. The law does not

provide for such piecemeal differentiation, and we decline to

impose it in this case.

4Citing Conlin v. Turner’s Express, Inc., 331 S.E.2d 453, 455

(Va. 1985) (whether driver assisted in the loading operation not

relevant to the determination of whether the contractor was engaged

in the manufacturer’s trade, business, or occupation).

5

Conlin, 331 S.E.2d at 455 (transportation of machinery and

parts between two plants was an “essential element” of the business

and thus the contractor’s activities were part of the “trade,

business or occupation” of the premises owner); Bowling v. Wellmore

Coal Corp., 114 F.3d 458, 461 (4th Cir. 1997) (transportation of

product between owner’s premises and its processing facility held

to be “an essential and integral part of its business”); Smith v.

Horn, 351 S.E.2d 14, 17 (Va. 1986) (transportation of product

between owner’s premises and its processing facility was part of

the contractor’s “trade, business or occupation”). 

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actual unloading of the product,4 removed Meredith’s activity from

the trade, business, or occupation of Honeywell, and we agree.

Moreover, as the district court held, the operative factual

distinctions regarding the relationship between premises owner and

contractor for purposes of the applicability of the Act are whether

the transportation was intra-company, or between two separate

companies, with the former properly being held to be part of the

owner’s trade, business or occupation,5

 and whether the product

delivered was independently manufactured, with such products being
6

The Virginia Supreme Court consistently has held that there

is no statutory employer/employee relationship where the injured

independent contractor was delivering a third-party’s or the

contractor’s own materials to the job site. See, e.g., Rice v. VVP

America, Inc., 137 F. Supp. 2d 658 (E.D. Va. 2001); Crocker v.

Riverside Brick & Supply Co., 639 S.E.2d 214 (Va. 2007); Stevens v.

Ford Motor Co., 309 S.E.2d 319 (Va. 1983); Burroughs v. Walmont,

Inc., 168 S.E.2d 107 (Va. 1969); Buffalo Shook Co. v. Barksdale,

141 S.E.2d 738 (Va. 1965). See also Clean Sweep Prof’l Parking Lot

Maint., Inc., 591 S.E.2d 79, 83 (Va. 2004) (truck driver employed

by trucking company to deliver asphalt between defendant’s asphalt

plant and its worksite, injured at worksite, was engaged in

essential part of defendant’s work, distinguishing the case from

those where trucking company was “merely delivering its own

independently manufactured parts.”).

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held not to be within the defendant’s trade, business or

occupation.6

 Here, the transportation of caprolactam from

Honeywell’s Hopewell plant to its Irmo plant, where the chemical

was processed and used to manufacture nylon, was an integral part

of Honeywell’s “trade, business or occupation” under the plain

language of Va. Code § 65.2-302(A). Plus, Meredith was not merely

delivering an independently manufactured product to a job site.

Rather, he was transporting material manufactured by Honeywell

between Honeywell’s manufacturing plants, which was, as the

district court held, an essential part of Honeywell’s business.

Nor does the fact that Honeywell had a contract with

Oakley the terms of which provided that Oakley was an independent

contractor, that neither Oakley nor its employees would be

considered Honeywell employees, and that Oakley would obtain

workers’ compensation insurance for its employees, alter the legal

obligations of the respective parties under the Act. As properly
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noted by the district court, the Act explicitly provides that “no

contract or agreement, written or implied, . . . shall in any

manner operate to relieve any employer in whole or in part of any

obligation created by this title.” Va. Code Ann. § 65.2-300(A).

Thus, the contract does not protect Honeywell from its obligations

as a statutory employer under the Act, nor does it provide Meredith

with a loophole through which he can circumvent the exclusivity

provisions of the Act.

Finally, Meredith’s assertion that Honeywell was not his

statutory employer under the “normal work test” espoused by the

Virginia Supreme Court in Shell Oil Co. v. Leftwich, 187 S.E.2d

162, 167 (Va. 1972), is likewise without merit. While Honeywell

does not presently use its direct employees to transport

caprolactam along the precise interstate route followed by

Meredith, their drivers transport the same chemical, in the same

manner, using the same procedures and equipment, for the same

purpose, between the Hopewell plant and other Honeywell fiber

plants in Virginia. We find no error in the district court’s

conclusion that there is no legal distinction between the fact that

Meredith transported the caprolactam across state lines, and that

the Honeywell drivers transported the substance within Virginia. 

The facts of this case establish that Honeywell was

Meredith’s statutory employer, and accordingly, his sole remedy was

under the Act. We therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal
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of Meredith’s tort action against Honeywell for lack of subject

matter jurisdiction. We dispense with oral argument because the

facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the

materials before the court and argument would not aid the

decisional process.

AFFIRMED