James Demetres v. East West Construction, Inc., 776 F.3d 271

Plaintiff James Thomas Demetres, a North Carolina resident, was superintendent for Ashland Construction (NC) on a Virginia Beach CVS site in March 2011.
An East West Construction (VA) employee operating a bulldozer struck and severely injured Demetres on the Virginia jobsite.
Demetres received workers’ compensation benefits through his direct employer Ashland under North Carolina law.
Two years later Demetres sued East West in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia for negligence, seeking $100,000,000.
East West moved to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1), arguing the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act (VWCA) exclusivity provision barred the suit; the district court, relying on Garcia v. Pittsylvania County Service Authority, dismissed.
The Fourth Circuit affirmed, holding Virginia law governs (lex loci delicti), East West is a statutory co-employee under the VWCA, and Garcia requires application of Virginia’s exclusivity rule despite benefits paid in North Carolina.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Full Faith and Credit requires Virginia to apply North Carolina law (which allowed suit) because Demetres received NC benefits	Demetres: Virginia must give full faith and credit to NC law and allow the tort claim	East West: Virginia law controls under Klaxon/lex loci delicti; VWCA bars the suit	Held: Virginia law governs; Full Faith and Credit does not require deferring to NC here under controlling precedent (Garcia/Carroll)
Whether the VWCA bars Demetres’s tort suit against a subcontractor	Demetres: Receiving NC benefits means East West would not be immune and suit should proceed	East West: As a subcontractor engaged in the same trade, it is a statutory co-employee and immune under Va. Code §65.2-307	Held: East West is a statutory co-employee under Virginia law; VWCA exclusivity bars the suit

Garcia v. Pittsylvania County Serv. Auth., 845 F.2d 465 (4th Cir. 1988) (held Virginia’s workers’ compensation bar applied to out-of-state employees injured in Virginia)
Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U.S. 408 (U.S. 1955) (Full Faith and Credit does not compel forum state to adopt another state’s more restrictive workers’ compensation bar)
Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Elec. Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487 (U.S. 1941) (federal courts apply forum state’s choice-of-law rules in diversity cases)
Hughes v. Fetter, 341 U.S. 609 (U.S. 1951) (applies Full Faith and Credit balancing test in choice-of-law contexts)
Solomon v. Call, 166 S.E. 467 (Va. 1932) (earlier Virginia decision allowing suit by out-of-state employee who collected benefits elsewhere)
Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500 (U.S. 2006) (standards for Rule 12(b)(1) and jurisdictional factfinding)