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Yesterday, in Bouayad v. Normandy Insurance Company, the Florida Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in a case whose facts could have come straight out of a Law & Order TV episode.
Here’s the background as stated by the Court:
While wrapping up his workday as the general manager of a car rental business located on the premises of a hotel near Orlando International Airport, [Mohammed] Bouayad was shot numerous times at close range by an assailant who emerged from a dimly lit area and who did not rob Bouayad. The unsolved crime, captured by a surveillance camera, took place around midnight on June 28, 2019, while Bouayad 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, Bouayad 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 (two for theft, one for drug use). Bouayad otherwise would not have been working that shift.
Though gravely injured by the assailant, Bouayad made his way back to the hotel atrium, where he collapsed and expressed his belief that he had been shot by “Robert”—a reference to Robert Aponte, who, one day earlier, had threatened to kill Bouayad’s son. But Aponte was never charged in connection with the shooting of Bouayad. In fact, although “[t]he shooter’s face was not clearly visible on the video,” . . . witnesses who knew Aponte—including Bouayad’s son—opined that Aponte was not the assailant seen on the video.
After the attack, Bouayad petitioned for workers’ compensation benefits due to his injuries. Normandy Insurance Company, the carrier, responded that Bouayad’s claim should be denied as “the incident did not arise out of [Bouayad’s] employment”, as the identity of the shooter was unknown or the shooting related to a non-work-related family dispute.
Bouayad responded that because of the nature of his job, his work hours, and the location of the business near a high-crime rate area, he “faced an increased risk of becoming a crime victim when at work”.
The Court looked at the broad language of Florida’s workers’ compensation laws in determining whether the attempted murder arose out of work performed by Bouayad. The Court noted that the issue was not whether the attempted murder caused Bouayad’s injuries. Instead, the question was whether the injuries were work-related.
In no uncertain terms, the Court said that work assault cases are no exception to workers’ compensation coverage, even if the injury was not directly connected to the employee’s work. According to the Court, the proper consideration was to review the overall job duties and work environment to determine whether they exposed an employee to increased risks and hazards that brought about the injury.
The Court pointed out that not all workplace assaults are compensable. For example, it noted that an assault that was the result of personal animosity, where the employment had contributed nothing to the assault, would not be compensable. However, in this case, the court noted that Bouayad introduced evidence showing the dangers of his work, and the environment of the job made the injury work-related. The test is “whether Bouayad established that the ‘accident arose out of a risk incidental to work – whether a work risk somehow caused or contributed to the injury.’” In no uncertain terms, the Court stated, “ . . . we repeat that one way for a claimant to establish work-relatedness in such cases is to prove his overall job duties and work environment exposed him to an increased risk of assault.” The Court directed the lower appellate court to apply this standard in reviewing Bouayad’s case.
Case solved!