The general manager of an Orlando rental car agency who was shot while on the job has gone to the Florida Supreme Court in a battle about workers’ compensation insurance benefits.
An attorney for Mohammed Bouayad filed a notice this week that is a first step in asking the Supreme Court to take up the case.
The notice came after a panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal in August rejected benefits for Bouayad, saying he had not shown a “causal link” between the injuries he suffered and the work he performed for Value Car Rental.
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Bouayad then sought a rehearing before the full appeals court, or what is known as an “en banc” hearing. But in an 8-5 decision last month, the court turned down the rehearing request.
Bouayad was walking between the Holiday Inn Orlando-International Airport hotel, where a rental-car kiosk was located, and an office in a separate building on June 28, 2019, when he was shot seven times at close range, according to the August decision.
He was not robbed, and Value’s insurer, Normandy Insurance Co., denied he was entitled to workers’ compensation benefits.
At least in part, Normandy pointed to a confrontation the day before the shooting between a man and Bouayad’s wife and son over an alleged debt. In a concurring opinion last month to the decision to deny rehearing, appeals-court Judge Lori Rowe wrote that the state’s workers’ compensation law “does not cover all workplace injuries; it covers only work-caused injuries.
The result is that sometimes workplace injuries — even catastrophic injuries like the ones suffered by Bouayad — will not be compensable.” But in a dissent, Judge M. Kemmerly Thomas pointed to potential broad ramifications of the ruling.
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“As a result of the majority opinion, most victims of violent crime at work will be denied workers’ compensation benefits,” Thomas wrote. “Civil suits will significantly increase, and specialized lines of insurance covering crime will be necessary to address expanded liability exposure for employers. The employer and employee will ultimately both bear the economic brunt of these additional costs of doing business.”
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