Count Theft card as card in front on the player
You appear to be referring to this passage from the rules:


  At any given time, a maximum of three such broken tool cards may be in front of a particular player, but only one card of each type.


Given that each player has three tools, that is a meandering way of saying


  At any given time, only one broken tool card of each type may be in front of a particular player.


The point of the rule is that it's useless to break a tool twice. This has nothing to do with the Theft card.