Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, COVERAGE, LIABILITY—Fla. Sup. Ct.: Florida High Court reinstates shooting victim’s workers’ comp claim, rejecting narrow causation standard, (Jul 10, 2026)

By Nicholas Kaster, J.D.

While carrying car rental agreements and cash between work locations, the manager was shot multiple times by an unknown assailant and seriously injured.

When a third-party tortfeasor assaults an employee who is in the course and scope of employment, the employee can receive workers compensation for the resulting injuries, provided that he can meet his burden of establishing work-relatedness, the Florida Supreme Court has ruled. One way for a claimant to establish work relatedness in such cases is to prove that his overall job duties and work environment exposed him to an increased risk of assault. The Florida High Court thus quashed the decision of the Florida District Court of Appeal, which had held that the employee’s injuries were non-compensable, and remanded to the court “to conduct a proper competent, substantial evidence review, one applying the correct legal standard” (Bouayad v. Normandy Insurance Company, No. SC2023-1576 (Fla. Sup. Ct. July 9, 2026).

Employee at work when shot. The employee, a general manager of a car rental business located on the premises of a hotel near Orlando International Airport, was shot numerous times at close range by an unknown assailant. The employee was not robbed. The unsolved crime took place while the employee walked under a covered, outdoor walkway from the hotel atrium (where his company’s kiosk desk was located) to an outside office near the pool. At the end of each shift, the employee carried rental agreements and cash (if any) from the kiosk to that office. On the night in question, he worked the late shift because he was training new hires after having recently fired three employees. The employee otherwise would not have been working that shift.

Denied benefits. Though gravely injured by the assailant, the employee made his way back to the hotel atrium, where he collapsed and expressed his belief that he had been shot by an individual who, one day earlier, had threatened to kill the employee’s son. But that individual was never charged in connection with the shooting of the employee. After surviving the attack, the employee petitioned for workers’ compensation benefits. The carrier, Normandy Insurance Company, denied the claim on the ground that “the incident did not arise out of employment,” as required by chapter 440, Florida Statutes.

JCC decision. A judge of compensation claims (JCC) found that the employee was eligible for workers’ compensation benefits, relying in part on the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Strother v. Morrison Cafeteria, 383 So. 2d 623 (Fla. 1980). In that case, the Court upheld an award of workers’ compensation benefits to a cashier for injuries she sustained after being assaulted and robbed by men who followed her home from work, thinking she carried cash deposits. Among other things, the JCC found that the employee “was walking alone in an unsecured area” and that the area from which the shooter emerged was dark, making the employee “more vulnerable to an unexpected attack.” The JCC accepted the opinion of one of the employee’s experts that the work environment presented “enhanced risks of injury.” Accordingly, the JCC concluded that the employee’s employment substantially contributed to the risk of an attack and to risks to which he would not normally be exposed.

Decision vacated by appeals court. The First District Court of Appeal vacated the JCC’s order on appeal, holding that the employee’s injuries were non-compensable, reasoning that they did not arise out of work performed by the employee, as required by Florida’s workers’ compensation law.

The court below began by narrowly defining “work performed,” observing that, at the time of the shooting, the employee was performing the “work” of walking between two of his employer’s facilities. From there, the court explained that, although the employee was shot while performing the duty of walking, “the walking itself” did not cause the employee to suffer injuries from a shooting. In other words, to prevail, the employee would have had to show that he was shot as a direct result of the walking. But the employee could not meet that burden, according to the court below, because “it was the act of the shooter that caused his injuries.”

The court below also certified the following question as one of great public importance:

“Notwithstanding Strother v. Morrison Cafeteria, 383 So. 2d 623 (Fla. 1980), when an act of a third-party tortfeasor is the sole cause of an injury to an employee who is in the course and scope of employment, can the tortfeasor’s act satisfy the occupational causation element, as defined by section 440.02(36), Florida Statutes [(2018)], necessary for compensability under the Worker’s Compensation Law?”

After the court below denied the employee’s motion for rehearing en banc, the Florida Supreme Court accepted jurisdiction based on the certified question.

Statutory provisions. To address the certified question, the Florida Supreme Court analyzed the text of the two statutory provisions at the heart of the dispute. First, the workers’ compensation coverage provision, section 440.09(1), says: “The employer must pay compensation or furnish benefits required by this chapter if the employee suffers an accidental compensable injury or death arising out of work performed in the course and the scope of employment.” (emphasis added). In this case, it was undisputed that the employee’s shooting occurred in the course and scope of his employment; only the statute’s “arising out of” element was contested. Second, section 440.02(36) says: “‘Arising out of’ pertains to occupational causation. An accidental injury or death arises out of employment if work performed in the course and scope of employment is the major contributing cause of the injury or death.” (emphasis added).

Florida’s High Court was not persuaded that the statutory text supported the lower court’s narrow focus on the task performed at the time of injury or its view of causation in the workers’ compensation context. The better reading of “arising out of work performed” and “occupational causation,” said the Court, is what courts have long said—the accident (and resulting injuries) must have a work relatedness in the sense of a nexus or link to the employee’s “work.”

Also weighing against the lower court’s narrow interpretation, said the Court, particularly with respect to causation, is that the phrase “arising out of” generally has a broad sweep, one that merely requires some connection or link. An injury “arising out of work performed” is not synonymous with an injury “caused by work performed,” certainly not from a tort-causation standpoint.

The lower court’s “causation” focus, said the High Court, wrongly introduces tort causation into the analysis of occupational causation. Because the workers’ compensation system is not a tort system, said the Court, the relevant question here has never been whether the third-party tortfeasor “caused” the employee’s injuries. Rather, the relevant question is whether the injuries have work-relatedness. Workplace assault cases are no exception. In short, the statutory text did not support the district court’s narrow focus on the one task performed at the time of injury or its view of “causation.” Thus, the Florida Supreme Court reaffirmed the longstanding precedents that more broadly look to work-relatedness—whether the injury is connected to the employee’s work.

Work-relatedness. To determine work-relatedness, said the Court, the “necessary inquiry” is whether a claimant’s “accident arose out of a risk incidental to work—whether a work risk somehow caused or contributed to the injury.” Because proof of risk exposure can be sufficient to satisfy the occupational causation requirement in workplace assault cases, proof of a work-related motive for the assault (as in a robbery) is not required.

To be sure, said the Court, precedent shows that not all workplace assaults are compensable. When the animosity or dispute that culminates in an assault is imported into the employment from claimant’s domestic or private life, and is not exacerbated by the employment, the assault does not arise out of the employment under any test.

The employee introduced evidence attempting to establish the dangers associated with some of his “work” duties (e.g., firing employees, carrying cash late at night, etc.) and with the environment of the job. Based on that evidence, the JCC declined to find that the risk of injury in this case was “distinctly (or wholly) personal in nature”—i.e., that the risk was one that the employee “imported into the workplace.” Instead, the JCC concluded in part that his employment “substantially contributed” to the risk of an attack and to risks to which he would not normally be exposed. The district court summarily dismissed that evidence as not providing “competent, substantial evidence” to show that the work performed by employee—walking between two parts of his employer’s premises—caused the injuries he suffered in the shooting.

According to the Florida High Court, the lower court erred by categorically refusing to consider whether the employee’s risk exposure evidence satisfied the statute’s occupational causation requirement. The Court also disagreed with the argument that the employee could not prevail because (1) the JCC found that he was the victim of a targeted assault and (2) the employee failed to establish the reason for the assault. That was just another way of arguing that the employee must prove a work-related motive for the assault, a premise the High Court rejected. The test is whether the employee established that the “accident arose out of a risk incidental to work—whether a work risk somehow caused or contributed to the injury.” He was not required to more narrowly establish that being the victim of a targeted attempted murder is a hazard associated with employment at rental car agencies.

The lower court’s decision, which departed from longstanding precedent governing the compensability of injuries sustained in workplace assaults, adopted an erroneous interpretation of the applicable statutory provisions, the Florida Supreme Court held. The Court also found that the certified question improperly incorporated a tort-based understanding of causation that is out of place in the workers’ compensation context. Therefore, the Court rephrased the certified question as follows: “When a third-party tortfeasor assaults an employee who is in the course and scope of employment, can the resulting injuries be compensable under the Workers’ Compensation Law?” The answer is yes, said the Court, provided that the workers’ compensation claimant can meet his burden of establishing work-relatedness under the principles it explained in its decision. And one way for a claimant to establish work relatedness in such cases is to prove that his overall job duties and work environment exposed him to an increased risk of assault.

Accordingly, the Florida Supreme Court quashed the lower court’s decision and remanded for it “to conduct a proper competent, substantial evidence review, one applying the correct legal standard.”

The case is No. SC2023-1576.

Judge: Muniz, C.

Attorneys: Michael J. Winer (Winer Law Group) and Charles Smith (C.W. Smith Law, P.A.) for Mohammed Bouayad. William H. Rogner (HR Law) for Normandy Insurance Co.

Companies: Normandy Insurance Co.

Cases: StateLawClaims CoverageLiability TortClaims FloridaNews