Unions back benefits in workplace shooting

TALLAHASSEE - As the Florida Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments, a major police union and other labor groups are backing the general manager of an Orlando rental-car agency in a dispute about workers' compensation insurance benefits after he was shot. Attorneys for the Florida State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police and other unions filed briefs Monday urging the Supreme Court to overturn a decision that rejected benefits for Mohammed Bouayad. A divided panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal said Bouayad had not shown a "causal link" between the injuries he suffered and the work he performed for Value Car Rental.

Bouayad was walking between the Holiday Inn Orlando-International Airport hotel, where his rental-car kiosk was located, and an office in a separate building on June 28, 2019, when he was shot seven times by an unidentified person.

In its friend-of-the-court brief, the Fraternal Order of Police argued that the casempact law enforcement officers' ability to obtain workers' compensation benefits when injured by an unidentified assailant."

"In this case, the First District Court of Appeal concluded that because Mr. Bouayad failed to establish a work-related motive for his shooting, his claim was not compensable," the police s wrote. "Requiring a (workers' compensation) claimant to prove an assailant's motive or purpose imposes an impractical and unreasonable standard. Motive is often unknowable in cases of workplace violence, as perpetrators may escape detection or exercise their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Further, the absence of evidence regarding a motive does not negate the fact that employment-related factors can place a claimant in harm's way."

The Supreme Court said in October that it will hear the casehas not announced a date for the arguments. The appeals-court panel, in a 2-1 decision, sided with Value and the rental-car company's insurer, Normandy Insurance Co., in August 2023.

The appeals court's majority opinion said Bouayad "did not meet his burden to prove that the injuries he suffered arose out of the work he performed for Value." "The sole cause of his injuries was that he was shot," said the opinion, written by Judge Lori Rowe and joined by Judge Thomas Winokur. "At most, the work he performed for Value placed Bouayad in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is not enough to establish occupational causation."

But the Fraternal Order of Police brief said the rationale of the decision could lead to scenarios where law-enforcement officers would be denied workers' compensation benefits. "Under the First DCA's analysis, a law enforcement officer who is walking to his vehicle from the station to go on patrol and is shot in a drive-by by an assailant that is never caught may not be entitled to workers' compensation benefits because the act of walking to his vehicle did not cause the officer to be shot," the brief said.

Meanwhile, a brief filed on behalf of the North Florida Building and Construction Trades Council and locals of the Teamsters, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail andWorkers said the appeals-court decision could lead to lawsuits over workplace injuries. The workers' compensation system is designed, in part, to keep disputes out of court.

"If not reversed, there is a great probability that many more employees injured on the job will have access only to tort litigation against the employer who employed the injured worker (personal health insurance usually exempts health care for insureds injured on the job)," attorneys for the four unions wrote.

In defending against the claim, Normandy Insurance cited a confrontation the day before the shooting between a man and Bouayad's wife and son over an alleged debt, according to court documents. The man was not charged in Bouayad's shooting.

The dispute about benefits went before a judge of compensation claims, who sided with Bouayad. That led Normandy Insurance to take the dispute to the Tallahassee-based appeals court. "The question for the JCC (judge of compensation claims) was - did the work Bouayad performed for Value - walking between Value's facilities - itself cause him to be shot seven times at close range?" the appeals court's majority opinion said. "There is no question that the walking itself did not cause Bouayad's injuries. Rather, it was the act of the shooter that caused his injuries. So how can it be said that his injuries arose from the work Bouayad performed?"