The Florida Supreme Court overturned a lower court's ruling, finding that a manager shot outside his workplace was entitled to workers' compensation benefits. The case is Bouayad v. Normandy Ins. Co., 2026 LX 382502 (Fla. 2026).
Background
Mohammed Bouayad was a general manager of a car rental business operating on the grounds of a hotel near Orlando International Airport. On June 28, 2019, around midnight, he was shot several times while walking through a covered, outdoor walkway between the hotel atrium, where his company's kiosk was, and an outside office near the pool, where he carried the rental agreements and cash from each shift. He was working late that night training new hires, after recently firing three employees.
The shooter came from a dimly lit, unsecured stretch of the walkway obscured by vegetation and did not rob Bouayad. The shooting, which was captured on surveillance video, was never solved, and no one was ever charged.
Bouayad initially told others he believed he had been shot by Robert Aponte, who had threatened to kill Bouayad's son the day before. However, witnesses who knew Aponte, including Bouayad's son, said he was not the person visible in the footage.
Bouayad filed for workers' compensation benefits. His employer's carrier, Normandy Insurance Company, denied the claim, characterizing the shooting as an intentional and personal, non-work-related event, and later argued that both the shooter's identity and motive were either unknown or tied to the non-work-related Aponte dispute.
Legal History
At a merits hearing, Bouayad presented expert testimony that his work environment, including late hours, carrying cash in a dark area in a neighborhood with a higher crime rate than his own, and the potential for retaliation from terminated employees, substantially contributed to his risk of being attacked.
Normandy Insurance Company countered that the shooting was a targeted attack rather than a robbery, that the lighting was adequate, and that Bouayad actually faced a greater crime risk near his home than at the hotel.
A judge of compensation claims (JCC) awarded benefits to Bouayad, finding that the shooting was likely a targeted attack by someone who knew Bouayad's late shift and his walking route, and likely connected to a recent termination or other job-related issue. The JCC concluded that Bouayad established that his injuries arose out of his employment.
Normandy appealed the decision to the First District Court of Appeal, which vacated the award. The court reasoned that the only work performed at the time of the shooting was the act of walking, and that the walking did not directly cause the shooting. The court concluded that Bouayad's injuries were a result of a third-party shooter and not the result of his work, and thus non-compensable.
Florida Supreme Court
The Florida Supreme Court rejected the First District Court's ruling, finding that Florida's workers' compensation system is not a tort system, but a no-fault system. Bouayad did not need to prove that a specific physical motion caused his injury, just that there was work-relatedness.
Florida statutes require compensation for injuries "arising out of work performed in the course and the scope of employment," and deem an injury work-related when work performed is the major contributing cause of the injury. "Arising out of" is defined as pertaining to occupational causation.
The Court noted that "pertains to" is fairly broad and ordinarily means "relates to" or "concerns," and that "arising out of" has long been understood to require only some nexus or connection rather than tort-style proximate cause.
Because workers' compensation is a no-fault system and not a tort system, the relevant question was never whether the shooter caused Bouayad's injuries, but whether those injuries were connected to his work.
In Sentry Insurance Co. v. Hamlin, the court found that "to determine work-relatedness, 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."
For workplace-assault cases, the Court identified two independent ways to satisfy that standard: a claimant can show the assailant had a work-related motive, such as a robbery, or a claimant can show that his job duties and work environment exposed him to increased risks or hazards that brought about the injury. For the latter, proof of a work-related motive is not necessary.
In this case, Bouayad's evidence about the dangers of firing employees, carrying cash late at night, and walking in an unlit, unsecured path showed that he had an increased risk of being a victim as a result of his work environment. The First District erred by "refusing to consider whether Bouayad's risk exposure evidence satisfied the statute's occupational causation requirement."
The court also rejected Normandy's argument that Bouayad had to identify the specific reason he was targeted to be compensated, since that argument was another way of demanding proof of a work-related motive, which the court already concluded is not necessary. The court quashed the First District's decision and remanded the case.
Editor's Note
The Florida Supreme Court overturned the ruling of the First District Court of Appeal after finding that it did not apply the right causation standard. Florida's workers' compensation is a no-fault system, not a tort system.
To determine whether a workplace assault caused or contributed to an injury, a claimant can show the assailant had a work-related motive, or that his job duties and work environment exposed him to increased risks or hazards that brought about the injury. Satisfying one requirement is enough to show that an injury is compensable. Since Bouayad was able to prove his work environment exposed him to heightened risk of injury, his injuries were compensable.
The court also noted that the First District's interpretation would render all cases where a third-party tortfeasor caused the injury non-compensable, which is not the design of the statutes.
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Ray Sugrim
Ray Sugrim is an Insurance Editor with FC&S Expert Coverage Interpretation, a division of National Underwriter Company and Arc Network. Ray is responsible for helping develop and edit content for subscribers. Ray is a St John’s University graduate with a degree in Risk Management & Insurance and is a CPCU candidate.