Mohammed Bouayad v. Normandy Insurance Company, et al.
The Florida Supreme Court quashed the First District's decision and held that injuries from a third-party assault on an employee in the course and scope of employment can be compensable under the Workers' Compensation Law if the claimant establishes work-relatedness. The Court rejected the First District's narrow focus on the isolated task performed at the moment of injury and its importation of tort causation into occupational-causation analysis, reaffirming the longstanding rule that increased risk exposure from job duties or work environment is an independent basis for compensability.
Key facts
- Mohammed Bouayad, general manager of a car rental business on hotel premises near Orlando International Airport, was shot multiple times by an unknown assailant around midnight as he walked from the hotel atrium kiosk to an outside office at the end of his shift.
- The carrier, Normandy Insurance, denied the workers' compensation claim on the ground that the shooting did not 'arise out of' Bouayad's employment and was a personal, non-work-related targeted attack.
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Holdings
- The statutory phrase 'arising out of work performed' in sections 440.09(1) and 440.02(36) requires only a work-relatedness or nexus between the injury and the employee's overall job duties…
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Why it matters
This decision is critical for workers' compensation practitioners and insurers because it forecloses the First District's restrictive 'discrete task' causation theory that would have rendered nearly all… — full analysis with a trial
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