Burn injuries in Arizona can happen in many ways. You can experience a burn injury at home, at work, or as a result of an event like a car accident. During the summer in Scottsdale, sidewalks and street pavement can become so hot from exposure to the sun that you can suffer severe burns on your bare feet when walking on them.
When a burn injury happens through no fault of your own, you may be able to recover compensation if your burns have been directly or indirectly caused by someone else.
The personal injury attorneys at the Stone Rose Law firm can help you receive the compensation you need for medical costs in connection with a burn injury. Call us at (480) 498-8998 to talk with one of our Scottsdale 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 because many minor burn injury victims who suffer first-degree burns do not report their injuries.
Some estimates are that more than a million people are burned annually, and about 400,000 people are diagnosed with burn injuries at emergency departments every year.
Most burns take place in the home, although burn injuries can also happen where you work, when you are driving, or when you are engaged in recreational activities.
There are many direct ways to sustain a burn injury. However, the most common come from:
Fire is easily the most frequent source of burns and 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 | The most common kinds of burns. They affect the outer layer of your skin, the epidermis. 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 burns 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 (burns to the face can affect your ability to breathe and to see, and burns to the hands or feet can affect your ability to move or engage in activities), 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 show that it is more likely than not that:
Here are some examples of how negligence by someone else can lead to a compensable burn injury.
These burns often occur at home. A potential liability example is an apartment hot water heater set too high without a temperature-regulating valve. If the water temperature exceeds 140°F, it poses a risk of burning, especially to individuals with sensitive skin, such as children or the elderly. If this is the case, it may 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 you suffer a burn injury while using a product as intended—such as a faulty water heater or a vehicle with a poorly designed gasoline tank that explodes in a collision—you may be able to sue anyone in the original chain of manufacture and sale based on product liability.
Unlike ordinary negligence, if you can show that a product was defective or an inherently dangerous product not adequately labeled, caused you to suffer an injury, you do not have to prove negligence, thanks to “strict liability” rules.
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 can frequently occur 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, your likely only avenue of compensation will be through Arizona workers’ compensation, not usually a negligence-based personal injury lawsuit (however this is not always the case, in some very specific types of cases both workers’ compensation law and negligence laws apply, see more below). Workers’ compensation is a form of no-fault insurance, meaning that you do not need to prove negligence on the employer’s part. However, you do need to prove that you were injured 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. However, 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 during your employment. This is because the benefits you would receive through workers’ compensation differ from what you might seek in a personal 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 have a lasting effect on your life. A severe burn injury, like one involving third-degree burns, can require months of hospitalization, multiple surgeries, years of long-term therapeutic care, and leave you with permanent scarring.
It is not uncommon for severe burn victims to recover damages awards of millions of dollars because of these significant and long-lasting medical complications and ongoing pain and permanent physical disfigurement.
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:
The main difference between a negligence lawsuit and a workers’ compensation claim for a burn injury is the amount you can recover. Workers’ compensation claims are generally more limited than personal injury claims.
You can also receive total compensation through workers’ comp for your medical expenses and physical therapy. Surviving relatives of a deceased worker can 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 cannot receive punitive damages in a workers’ compensation claim.
A Scottsdale burn injury lawyer can help you understand whether you have any other possible fair compensation claims for someone else’s negligence.
Serious burn injury lawsuits can be challenging to pursue. This is partly because burn injuries often result in high-value damages claims, making burn injury defendants fight harder against them in settlement negotiations and court.
Many burn injury lawsuits settle and never go to court. Often, this will mean dealing with an insurance company and its lawyers. It is vital that your Scottsdale personal injury lawyer performs proficiently at trial and is a good negotiator.
When you hire one of our Scottsdale burn injury attorneys at Stone Rose Law, your experienced burn injury lawyer will help you negotiate with insurance companies and their attorneys from the strongest possible position. We will help gather the evidence needed 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 Scottsdale, 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 reach out to us here to ask a question about your accident or to set up a free case evaluation with a quality Scottsdale personal injury plaintiff’s attorney.
