Florida Workplace Assault Claims Just Got Harder to Deny
A Florida Supreme Court ruling on July 9 revived a workplace-shooting claim and widened when an assault counts as work-related. One $150,000 assault claim can push an otherwise clean contractor mod past 1.00.
Yes. After Bouayad v. Normandy Insurance (Florida Supreme Court, July 9, 2026), an assault is compensable when the job's duties or environment exposed the worker to an increased risk, not only when a specific task caused it. For contractors, one severe lost-time assault claim reserved near $150,000 can push an otherwise clean mod past 1.00 and off a bid list.
Florida just made a workplace assault harder to write off. On July 9, 2026, the state Supreme Court revived a comp claim a carrier had spent three years trying to bury, and the reasoning reaches well past the car-rental counter where it started (Bouayad v. Normandy Insurance, No. SC2023-1576).
The claim that lands on your worksheet doesn't care whether the injury came from a fall or a fist.
For years, carriers in Florida leaned on a narrow reading. If the worker wasn't performing a specific job task at the instant of the assault, the injury didn't "arise out of" the work, and the claim died. The First District Court of Appeal blessed that reading in 2023. The Supreme Court just threw it out.
What the Bouayad ruling actually changed
Mohammed Bouayad managed a car-rental branch near Orlando International Airport. Around midnight in 2019, at the end of a late training shift, he was shot multiple times while walking between an indoor kiosk and an outside office through a dark, unsecured lot (Bouayad v. Normandy Insurance, July 9, 2026). The shooter was never charged.
Florida's comp statute requires an injury to arise out of work performed in the course and scope of employment (Fla. Stat. 440.09). The fight was over whether being shot while walking counted. The Court said the test isn't the task at the moment of injury. It's whether "his overall job duties and work environment exposed him to an increased risk of assault" (Fla. Sup. Ct., July 2026).
Writing for the Court, Justice Carlos Muniz rejected the narrow frame: "We doubt the Legislature would use such broad language to ultimately mean something as narrow as the First District's understanding" (Bouayad, July 2026). The decision restored the threshold from Strother v. Morrison Cafeteria (1980), a standard Florida had used for four decades. Defense attorney George Kagan called it "a restoration of the status quo pre-Bouayad," not a setback for industry (Insurance Journal, July 2026).
Not every assault qualifies. A fight born of personal animosity, where the job contributed nothing, still isn't compensable. The line is exposure created by the work.
Why this reaches construction, not just car rentals
Read the facts that made Bouayad's claim stick: late hours, an isolated worker, poor lighting, an unsecured site, cash and paperwork on hand. Now read a jobsite. Night roadwork. A lone equipment operator. An unlit lot holding copper and tools. A super carrying a payroll envelope. Those aren't rental-counter facts. They're Tuesday on a Southeast construction site.
In our reviews of Southeast contractor worksheets, the claims that do the damage are rarely the ones anyone flagged in advance. An assault used to be a claim a carrier might deny on the arising-out-of question. After Bouayad, the deniability that kept those claims off your loss run just narrowed.
The dollar the split point hides
Here's where it hits the mod. A serious assault is a severe, lost-time claim by nature: gunshot or blunt-force trauma, long recovery, heavy medical and indemnity reserves. Say one lands in your experience period reserved at $150,000.
Your experience mod doesn't weigh every dollar the same. NCCI (the National Council on Compensation Insurance) splits each claim into primary and excess losses, and primary losses drive the calculation. Florida's split point now tracks roughly 40% of the state's average lost-time claim cost and resets each year (NCCI, 2026). A $150,000 assault claim fills the primary layer instantly, and that primary piece sits in your formula for three straight rating periods.
That's the difference between an account that quotes clean and one that doesn't. A contractor sitting at 0.98 with one such claim can cross 1.05 fast. On public and larger private work, a mod over 1.00 is the line between qualifying to bid and getting screened out before price ever enters the room. One claim, three renewals, every bid in between.
What an audit would check
An audit checks whether an assault claim on your worksheet was actually adjudicated as compensable or simply reserved as if it were. It checks that the reserve reflects the current medical picture rather than a worst-case number set in the first panicked week. It checks that the claim sits in the right experience period and the right classification. After Bouayad, more of these claims will stick; whether the version on your worksheet is the accurate one is a separate question, and it's the one that moves the number.
A ruling in Tallahassee won't lower your mod. A worksheet that reflects what your claims actually are might. Send us your NCCI worksheet and we'll review it before your next renewal.