A serious burn injury can impact your quality of life, your ability to work, and even your relationships with your family, friends, and other loved ones. When you suffer a serious burn injury caused by someone else’s careless or reckless actions, you may have legal grounds to seek compensation.
A burn injury claim can help you recover the value of the dollar losses from your injury as well as other harms you have experienced, like pain and suffering. Our team at OnderLaw can evaluate your potential case and explain whether you may be entitled to file a burn injury lawsuit.
Proving Liability for Burn Injuries
If someone else’s negligence caused your burn injury, you may be able to get compensation. Burn injuries can happen in a wide range of incidents that may result from a person or company’s failure to observe their legal duty of care.
These include thermal, chemical, radiation, or electrical burn injuries. For example, thermal burns are commonly sustained in incidents like motor vehicle accidents or building fires, both of which are events that typically trace back to someone’s negligence.
Chemical burns can occur from the use of dangerous or defective products, whereas medical negligence is a common cause of radiation burn injuries. A property owner or subcontractor’s negligence could result in an electrical fire that results in a terrible burn injury. These are just a handful of examples of how negligence can lead to a life-changing burn injury.
In order to prove that an individual or company’s negligence caused your burn injury and hold them liable for compensation, you have to demonstrate that four things happened. First, someone had to have owed you a legal duty. Second, they must have violated that duty.
Third, the violation of their duty must have been the direct cause of your burn injury. Finally, your burn injury must have led to damages for which you can be compensated. Our diligent legal professionals can review all available facts and evidence to help you construct a detailed case for compensation that reflects the full value of your injuries.
Types & Potential Consequences of Serious Burn Injuries
Burn injuries fall into several classifications. While some burn injuries may heal fully with the proper treatment and passage of time, others can leave lifelong scarring, disfigurement, and suffering—and even lead to other life-threatening medical conditions.
First-degree burns are the least serious type of injury, while fourth-degree burns are the gravest form of these injuries. A first-degree burn injures the outer layer of the skin. A second-degree burn goes beyond that outer layer into the secondary skin layer.
Next are third-degree burns, which not only extend through the first layer of the skin (the epidermis) and the second layer of the skin (the dermis), but also go into the third skin layer (the hypodermis). Fourth-degree burns penetrate all three skin layers, with the damage extending still further into the muscles, tendons, and even the bones.
Serious burn injuries can result in a range of physical complications that may be calculated in the final value of compensation recovered in a personal injury claim. These could include chronic pain, various cardiovascular or gastrointestinal diseases, psychological disorders, and even certain types of cancers.
Filing a Burn Injury Lawsuit for Compensation
If you think you may have grounds to pursue compensation for a burn injury, you need to make sure you observe the statute of limitations for your case. In Missouri, most burn injury claims must be filed within five years of the date of the incident. In situations where an individual passes away from their burn injuries, the deadline to file a claim is three years or 36 months from the date of the death.
You could recover multiple forms of monetary compensation in a successful burn injury claim, including your past and future medical bills, lost wages, and the value of your future lost earning ability. You could also be entitled to compensation for the pain, suffering, and emotional distress you have endured from your burn injury.
Some judges may award punitive damages in a burn injury claim to punish the at-fault party for particularly outrageous acts of negligence in addition to these other forms of compensation. Grieving family members who have lost a loved one to a burn injury and are entitled to bring a claim could recover the value of damages such as:
- Medical bills
- Burial costs
- Funeral expenses
- The emotional distress and lost companionship resulting from the death
Talk With a Burn Injury Attorney About Your Potential Case
Even if you are clearly entitled to monetary payments for your burn injury, the insurance company is unlikely to make a fair initial settlement offer. In fact, the insurance company may try to deny your claim, or offer you a small settlement to try to get rid of the case as soon as possible.
Their priorities come down to preserving their bottom line. At OnderLaw, our priorities are your legal rights and future. You should not have to suffer the consequences of someone else’s wrongdoing or negligence.
The attorneys at OnderLaw can work to get you the money you deserve for your burn injury, whether that means engaging in aggressive settlement negotiations with the insurance company or taking your case to court. If you want to talk with a lawyer about starting a burn injury claim, contact our firm today and receive your free, one-on-one legal consultation.
