Also known as the Valley of the Sun, it’s no surprise that Phoenix, AZ, sees its share of burn injuries. Whether sustained at home, at work, or in an accident, getting burned can be a painful experience that has lasting effects on your life.
When a burn injury happens to you through no fault of your own, you may be able to recover compensation. The personal injury attorneys at the Stone Rose Law firm can help you receive the compensation you need for medical costs related to a burn injury. Call us at (480) 498-8998 to talk with one of our burn injury attorneys about your potential burn injury case.
It is impossible to say how many total burn injuries happen in the United States each year. Typically, burns are minor, first-degree burns that go unreported.
However, some suggest that more than a million people are burned annually. Additionally, about 400,000 people are diagnosed with burn injuries at emergency departments every year.
Most burns take place in the home. However, burns can also happen where you work, are driving, or are engaged in recreational activities.
The direct causes of burn injuries are many, but the most common include:
Fire is easily the most frequent source of burns. It causes about 40% of burn injury cases. Scalding is also a frequent cause of thermal burns and is the leading cause of children’s burn injuries.
Doctors classify burns in two ways: how they originate and what degree they are. The sources of burns are:
| Degree of Burn | Symptoms |
| First Degree | These are the most common kinds of burns. They affect the epidermis or the outer layer of your skin. The skin turns red, and the burn site is painful, possibly caused by skin peeling. These burns usually heal by themselves, usually within two to five days. |
| Second Degree | These burns affect the second layer of skin, the dermal layer. Symptoms include reddened skin with blisters and a moistened, mottled appearance. When properly treated, these burns will heal on their own within three weeks. |
| Third Degree | All layers of the skin are affected, including the nerve endings. Symptoms include black, charred skin, although some areas may be white. Depending on the extent of nerve damage in the skin, these areas can be extremely painful. Healing usually leaves scar tissue and skin grafting may be required for treatment. |
Burn degrees come in three levels. From least to most serious, they are:
| Classification | Causes |
| Thermal | These burns come from fire, scalding, touching a hot object.They can penetrate deep into the skin and cause significant tissue damage. |
| Chemical | These come from contact with acids, bases, and other caustic materials that burn through the skin’s layers. |
| Electrical | These burns occur when you touch a source of high-voltage electricity. They can cause nerve damage and respiratory and heart problems. |
| Radiation | Exposure to ultraviolet light is a common source of radiation burns (sunburn). Less common is exposure to nuclear radiation. These burns can lead to some forms of skin cancer. |
Additional factors that can weigh upon the seriousness of a burn are the part of the body burned, the extent of the burns on your body, your age, and any pre-existing physical or mental conditions you may have.
Serious burns are complex injuries affecting muscles, bones, nerves, the respiratory system, and blood vessels. They can also adversely affect electrolyte balance, body temperature and the ability to regulate it, joint functions and manual dexterity, and physical appearance.
Whether you can receive compensation for a burn injury depends on whether you can build a personal injury case for that injury. These cases require you to establish each of the following:
Here are some examples of how negligence by someone else can lead to a compensable burn injury.
These burns usually happen at home. An example of potential liability would be an apartment hot water heater without a temperature regulating valve and a temperature set too high. If your hot water temperature exceeds 140 degrees Fahrenheit, it poses a threat of burning users and could violate Arizona law.
Although laws exist to prevent dangerous fabrics from being sold in the United States, not all clothing manufacturers always adhere to those laws. Outside of children’s pajamas, no clear guidance exists to regulate the standards for fabric flammability.
Flammable fabrics used in clothing that result in a burn injury can be the source of a possible legal claim in Arizona. To win your case, you need to show that the fabric was highly or unusually flammable, that this excessive flammability caused your injury, and that the seller of the clothing item was in the business of professionally selling clothes.
If a product is defectively designed or manufactured, like a faulty water heater or a vehicle with a poorly designed gasoline tank that explodes in a collision, you may have a case against manufacturers for product liability.
Unlike negligence liability, if you can prove that the product was defective when designed by the manufacturer and caused injury, “strict liability” applies. You generally do not have to prove negligence.
If you are on the property of another person or business and are injured because of unsafe conditions, the owner of that property may be liable to you for the harm. Examples include:
Burn injuries often happen at places of employment. For example, electrical burn injuries happen often in the construction industry, and chemical burns are a substantial risk for manufacturing employees.
If you are injured at work, you will be compensated through Arizona workers’ compensation. This will usually be your only avenue to recover compensation. Typically, you cannot file a negligence-based personal lawsuit against the company, or your co-workers.
Workers’ compensation is a form of no-fault insurance. This means that you do not need to prove negligence on the employer’s part to receive workers’ compensation benefits. You will only need to prove that you were burned while working.
The only way to sue your employer for a workplace burn injury is if the injury happened because of a purposeful act by the employer. You may be able to file a personal injury claim against a third party other than your employer if that person caused your burn injury while you were at work.
The first question to consider after you receive a burn injury is whether it happened while you were working. The benefits you would receive through workers’ compensation for such an injury would differ from what you might seek in a burn injury lawsuit for negligence.
The second thing to consider is that burn injuries often result in severe physical harm and long-lasting consequences that can affect your life long-term. For example, a severe burn injury like one involving third-degree burns can require months of hospitalization, multiple surgeries, years of long-term therapeutic care, and still leave you with permanent scarring.
It is not uncommon for severe burn victims to recover damages awards in the millions of dollars because of these significant and long-lasting medical complications and ongoing pain.
What you can recover in money damages for burn injuries is the same as what you can seek for any other kind of injury. These damages include:
You can receive full compensation for your medical expenses and physical therapy through workers’ compensation. Surviving relatives of a deceased worker can also receive death benefits because of a work-related burn injury.
However, workers’ compensation and lost income benefits are subject to limits imposed by Arizona law. Also, you can’t receive punitive damages in a workers’ compensation claim.
A Phoenix burn injury lawyer can help you understand whether you have any other possible fair compensation claims for someone else’s negligence aside from workers’ compensation.
Serious burn injury lawsuits can be challenging to pursue. This is partly because burn injuries often result in high-value damages claims, causing burn injury defendants to fight harder against them in settlement negotiations and court.
Your burn injury lawyer must be skilled in supporting your claims with strong evidence and various legal theories based on your case’s circumstances. In serious burn injury cases, hiring litigation support specialists, such as medical experts, construction experts, fire investigators, plastic surgeons, product safety experts, and chemical engineers, is often necessary.
Many burn injury lawsuits never go to court and settle instead. This will mean dealing with an insurance company and its lawyers. A skilled, experienced Phoenix personal injury lawyer like those from Stone Rose Law can help you navigate these negotiations for the strongest possible position. We will help you gather the evidence you need to support your claims, including your medical bills, costs for rehabilitation, lost wages, property loss values, and more.
Call us today at (480) 498-8998 to talk with one of our experienced burn injury attorneys. Our offices are in Phoenix, but we can help you no matter where you may be in Maricopa County or anywhere else in Arizona. Do you prefer to communicate online? You can contact us online to ask a question about your accident or to set up a free case evaluation with a quality Phoenix personal injury plaintiff’s attorney.
