Florida's Supreme Court has made it harder for workers' comp carriers to deny a claim when an employee is attacked on the job.
In a July 9, 2026 decision, Florida's Supreme Court held that a workplace assault can be covered even when no one knows why the attacker struck.
The worker managed a car rental business run out of a hotel near Orlando International Airport. Around midnight on June 28, 2019, an unknown gunman emerged from a dimly lit area and shot him several times at close range as he walked a covered outdoor walkway between his kiosk and an outer office. The gunman did not rob him. A surveillance camera captured the attack, but it was never solved.
He was on the late shift only because he was training new hires, having recently fired three employees - two for theft and one for drug use. At each shift's end, he also carried rental agreements and cash from the kiosk to the office.
Just after the shooting, the worker said he thought the gunman was a man who, a day earlier, had threatened to kill his son. That man was never charged, and witnesses - including the worker's own son - said he was not the person on the video.
His carrier, Normandy Insurance Company (Normandy), denied the "[e]ntire claim" because, it said, "the incident did not arise out of employment." In an early filing, Normandy called the shooting an "intentional and personal, non-work related event."
Florida law makes carriers pay benefits for an injury "arising out of work performed in the course and the scope of employment." A companion provision says that phrase "pertains to occupational causation."
A judge of compensation claims awarded benefits, finding the worker's duties and surroundings put him at greater risk of attack. An appeals court reversed, reasoning that his only work at that moment was walking - and walking did not cause the shooting. The shooter did.
The Supreme Court rejected that narrow reading. A worker hurt in a workplace assault does not have to prove why the attacker struck, it held. Showing that the job's duties and setting raised the risk of an attack can be enough on its own.
The court quashed the appeals court's decision and sent the case back for a fresh review under the correct standard. For carriers, the message is plain: in Florida, an unknown or personal motive is no longer a sure defense to a workplace-assault claim if the work itself raised the risk.
