Steak ‘N Shake, Inc., Appellant, v. Amber Nicole Spears and Eric Spears, Appellees. (2025)

June 13, 2025

Michael M. Brownlee and Stacy Ford, of Brownlee Law Firm, P.A., and Terry E. Leach, of Walker, Revels, Greninger, PLLC, Orlando, for Appellant. John N. Hamilton and Maddison Cacciatore-Straus, of Nance Cacciatore, Melbourne, for Appellees.

Florida's statutory workers compensation system strikes a bargain: employers provide workers with medical, wage and death benefits for workplace injuries and, in return, they receive broad immunity from civil tort suits. By statute, the scope of liability for workplace injuries is “exclusive” and displaces all other forms of employer liability, excepting only intentional torts and an employer's failure to secure workers compensation coverage. See § 440.11(1), Fla. Stat. (2025) (under the section entitled “Exclusiveness of liability”).

In this case, Amber Nicole Spears, a Steak ‘N Shake server, experienced severe emotional distress after a workplace robbery during which she was held at gunpoint and forced into a backroom where the gunman repeatedly threatened to kill her. The perpetrator grabbed her by the shoulder and neck during the encounter. No dispute exists that Amber was an employee of Steak ‘N Shake and that the robbery occurred in the workplace while she was within the course and scope of employment.

Amber, however, did not pursue workers compensation benefits by filing a petition with her employer, Steak ‘N Shake. Instead, she filed a civil tort case directly in circuit court without first seeking a determination of whether her injuries were compensable by the employer. In response, Steak ‘N Shake claimed that it was entitled to workers compensation immunity because Amber had not made a request for benefits, and thereby not taken the first step in the process to determine whether her injuries were compensable.

Read more