Employer Nonliability for Unforeseeable Third-Party Criminal Acts: Proximate Causation Limits in Gimenez v. McLane

Introduction

Marilys Gimenez v. McLane Foodservice, Inc. is a decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit dated May 5, 2025. The dispute arose when Ms. Gimenez, a McLane employee, was brutally attacked and set on fire by her ex-partner, Felix Joseph, who gained entry to McLane’s secured facility by following an employee through a badge-access door. Ms. Gimenez sued McLane for negligence and loss of parental consortium, alleging that inadequate security measures made the attack foreseeable. The District Court granted summary judgment to McLane. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed, holding that the attack was so extraordinary that no reasonable jury could find McLane’s alleged security lapses proximately caused her injuries under Florida law.

Summary of the Judgment

The Eleventh Circuit’s per curiam opinion affirmed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment for McLane on both the negligence and derivative loss-of-consortium claims. Although McLane maintained security protocols—badge-access doors, annual training, CCTV—the court held that the attacker’s deliberate disguise, rental car, opportunistic intrusion, and heinous act were a “freakish and improbable chain of events” that broke any causal link to McLane’s conduct. Under Florida’s proximate causation standard, harms must be a foreseeable result of the defendant’s breach. Here, no reasonable jury could conclude that McLane’s policies made such a violent, calculated attack foreseeable.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

• Stone v. United States, 373 F.3d 1129 (11th Cir. 2004) – Elements of negligence (duty, breach, causation).
• McCain v. Florida Power Corp., 593 So.2d 500 (Fla. 1992) – Foreseeability and proximate causation; summary judgment when only one inference possible.
• Chirillo v. Granicz, 199 So.3d 246 (Fla. 2016) – Judicial removal of proximate causation when evidence supports a single inference.
• Colon v. Twitter, Inc., 14 F.4th 1213 (11th Cir. 2021) – Harm must be substantially caused by the defendant’s act; third-party intentional acts sever causation if “unusual, extraordinary, or bizarre.”
• Goldberg v. Florida Power & Light Co., 899 So.2d 1105 (Fla. 2005) – Third-party criminal acts that are unforeseeable break the causal chain.

Legal Reasoning

The court framed the negligence analysis in three parts: duty, breach, and causation. It expressly assumed—without deciding—that McLane owed a duty and may have breached it. The crux was proximate causation under Florida law: whether McLane’s security lapse made Ms. Gimenez’s harm a foreseeable result. Drawing on McCain and Goldberg, the panel emphasized that an intervening criminal act must be foreseeable to impute liability. Joseph’s premeditated decision to disguise himself, rent a car, exploit an unguarded door, and commit arson was “utterly unpredictable in light of common human experience.” That extraordinary, “freakish” sequence severed proximate causation as a matter of law.

Impact

This decision tightens the foreseeability requirement for premises-liability and employer-negligence cases in Florida and the Eleventh Circuit. Key implications include:

• Employers and property owners face a higher bar to show that third-party criminal acts were foreseeable.
• Summary judgment on proximate causation may be granted where the intervening act is an extraordinary deviation from normal risk.
• Security policies (badge systems, CCTV, training) must be evaluated against realistic threats, not every conceivable scenario.
• Insurers will likely rely on Gimenez to resist coverage for “one-off” violent incidents absent clear, prior warning signs.
• Counsel for plaintiffs must develop robust evidence of specific, imminent threats to defeat summary judgment on causation grounds.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Proximate Cause: A legal concept requiring that the defendant’s conduct be close enough to the plaintiff’s injury that a reasonable person would see the harm as a likely result.

Foreseeability: The standard by which courts decide if a defendant should have anticipated the risk of harm. If an intervening act is “bizarre” or “extraordinary,” it breaks the chain of foreseeability.

Summary Judgment: A court decision without a full trial, appropriate when there is no genuine dispute over material facts and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Intervening Criminal Act: When a third party’s intentional wrongdoing causes injury, courts ask whether that act was a foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s negligence. If not, liability is cut off.

Conclusion

Gimenez v. McLane Foodservice solidifies the principle that under Florida law, negligence liability does not extend to harms resulting from highly unusual, premeditated third-party acts. Even assuming an employer’s security policies were imperfect, the Eleventh Circuit made clear that liability hinges on whether the specific criminal act was foreseeable. This ruling reassures businesses that they will not be held responsible for every imaginable risk, but it also underscores the importance of realistic threat assessments and targeted security measures to address known dangers.