Burns are among the most traumatic and painful forms of injuries. Per the American Burn Association statistics, about a hundred thousand Americans seek medical attention for burn injuries each year. Recovering from burns can be physically and emotionally challenging. You may need cosmetic surgery, skin grafts, and prolonged hospitalization. Even with extensive medical care, burns can have a lasting or permanent effect. The good news is that you can file a lawsuit to receive compensation for your burn injuries. How do you go about filing a burn injury lawsuit? You will find that out as you read on.

Understanding Burn Injuries Causes to Know Whether and How to File Your Lawsuit

Burn injuries happen differently. In many cases, when people hear of a burn injury, they generally think of fire. However, more than one-half of burn injuries medical professionals treat in the U.S are a result of something that is not an open flame. The most prevalent burn injury causes in Nevada are:

  • Scalding liquids— approximately a third of all burns reported in the United States are due to hot liquids or steam. Water that attains 120 or more degrees in temperature results in scalding burns, and at 140 degrees, it will take only five seconds to cause third-degree burns. The hotter the water is and the longer it remains on your skin, the more severe the burns. Water can burn people while using a hotel bathtub, jacuzzi, when working in kitchens, and so on. For instance, a waiter overloads their tray with teapots and drops it on a customer, causing their (customer) skin to burn from the water. Building managers, homeowners, or employers can be held responsible in these cases. 
  • Chemical exposures— agricultural, medicine, construction, and manufacturing industries use poisonous, corrosive chemicals every day. Most people also use these chemicals at home. Harmful exposure to toxic chemicals could be accidental.  However, it is frequently because of negligent or deliberate industry practices. For instance, if a mechanic improperly disposes of an auto battery, causing battery acid to injure the janitor.
  • Building fires— often, fires result from defective wiring, cooking, smoking, unattended outdoor or indoor fires, and electrical issues. Any property owner has to comply with Nevada fire safety codes and have operational fire safety features, like smoke detectors, sprinklers, and fire extinguishers, just to mention but a few.
  • Workplace accidents— most employees can suffer burn injuries easily while at the workplace when their employers neglect to maintain a safe working environment. Construction employees are at an unusually high risk since they usually work with or around open flames, high voltage electricity, caustic or flammable chemicals, and hot equipment.
  • Vehicle collisions— millions of auto accidents occur every year, and most lead to severe injuries, burns included. Burn injuries may arise if a vehicle bursts into flames or a flammable liquid leaks and causes an explosion or catches fire.
  • Heat— hot objects or flames cause thermal burns. For instance, someone drops a cigarette butt at a gas station, which results in a fiery explosion that burns innocent people at the station. 
  • Inhalation burns— these burns arise from inhaling smoke. For instance, a camper forgets to extinguish a fire, and the resulting conflagration makes other campers inhale the flames, leading to smoke inhalation injuries to their lungs and airways.

Severe burn injuries can also arise from:

  • Fires resulting from hazardous conditions
  • Fires resulting from defective/dangerous products, such as electric heaters, kerosene heaters, gas-fired space heaters
  • Explosive gases
  • Fires in office complexes
  • Hotel and casino fires

A Burns Injury Personal Injury Attorney Can Help with Your Lawsuit

Whether your burn injuries occurred in a car, due to a defective or dangerous product, or for a different reason, you need an experienced lawyer on your side to help you file your lawsuit. The lawyer will:

  • Answer all the questions you may have concerning your rights and the filing of the suit
  • Do a free and no-obligation evaluation of your lawsuit
  • Work closely with medical professionals to obtain for you the correct treatment and document all your injuries
  • Thoroughly and carefully investigate your case, securing evidence
  • Negotiate with the at-fault party's insurance provider. Insurance providers are aggressive. Usually, they offer entirely unreasonable settlements. Lawyers know how to handle them, and they can negotiate for the maximum possible compensation.
  • Prepare a solid, persuasive burn injury suit.

You Will Need to Demonstrate Liability After Filing Your Suit

Every burn injury lawsuit is unique, with varying requirements for showing liability based on how the burns occurred and what party is guilty.

Burn Injury Lawsuits Based on Negligence

Many burn injury lawsuits are negligence-based. To hold someone else responsible for being negligent and recovering damages, you have to establish:

  • Duty — the person owed you the duty of care. For instance, drivers owe other road users a duty to drive carefully and prevent crashes. A property owner has the legal duty to maintain the safety of their premises for visitors and so on.
  • Breach — the person violated their duty. For instance, a driver operating a vehicle while intoxicated or a property owner neglecting to correct an obvious hazard.
  • Causation — their actions or omission directly led to your burn injuries, which would never have occurred had they not acted the way they did.
  • Damages — due to the party's breach of duty, you incurred losses, like lost income, medical bills, pain & suffering, and property damage.

An experienced lawyer must carefully investigate the circumstances of the burns before helping you file a lawsuit.

Who to Sue

Who you can sue for your burn injuries depends on your case facts. For instance:

  • Workplace burns injuries — if you sustained your burn injuries while at your workplace, you should seek workers’ comp benefits to help you pay for your medical expenses and compensate for your lost income. Apart from helping you file a lawsuit, your lawyer can establish if a third party is also responsible. If that is the case, you can file a third-party suit for additional damages.
  • Burn injuries that occurred while on another person’s property — if you suffered burn injuries due to the unsafe or adverse conditions on someone else’s, government’s, or company’s property, your lawyer can assist you in suing the property manager or owner.
  • Dangerous product-related burns — if a defective or dangerous product was the cause of your burns, your attorney can assist you in pursuing a product liability lawsuit. Any party associated with the dangerous/defective product’s distribution chain may be held responsible, for instance, the retailer, distributor, or manufacturer.
  • Car accident-related burns — your attorney can conduct a thorough investigation on what caused your auto crash and assist you in holding the guilty government entity, company, or motorist liable.

Burn Injury Lawsuits Based on Strict Liability

In a defective/dangerous product case, you can hold the careless/negligent party (manufacturer or any other parties) strictly responsible for your injuries. According to this legal theory, you do not have to prove negligence. You only have to show that the device/product was faulty, making it unreasonably dangerous, and the fault caused your injuries.

Regardless of what caused the injury, your lawyer should investigate to establish all responsible parties. Any entity or person that played a role in your sustaining burn injuries will be held liable if you prove that their negligence indirectly or directly caused your injury.

You Have a Limited Period to Bring Your Burn Injury  Suit

One significant mistake you can commit is waiting so long before taking legal action. Per Nevada law (Nevada Revised Statute 11.190(4)(e)), you have only a given period to file a lawsuit if you have sustained burns. Burn injury suits based on someone’s negligence are subject to a strict statute of limitations of two years. You have to bring your lawsuit before the two-year period ends. If you fail to do so, you will forfeit your legal right to recover the damages the at-fault parties owe you. The earlier you take legal action, the higher your chances of receiving compensation.

Although, some exceptions extend the period you have to bring your burn injury lawsuit. Have a lawyer evaluate your case to know the exact remaining period before the statute of limitations expires.

When a defective product causes your burn injuries, you will have four years to bring your product liability lawsuit. And if a government agency or employee caused your burn injuries, you will have a shorter period to bring your lawsuit. In this case, you will only have six months to inform the responsible government entity of your intention to bring a lawsuit.

You Deserve Maximum Compensation After You File Your Lawsuit and Win

You can pursue financial compensation for the loss you incurred due to the burn injuries through a personal injury suit. Recoverable damages you may recover in your burn injury lawsuit are:

Non-Economic Damages

Sustaining severe electrical, chemical, or thermal burns can have psychological and physical consequences. The reason for non-economic compensation is to reimburse you for your emotional distress, pain & suffering, lost companionship, loss of enjoyment of life, permanent impairment, disfigurement or scarring, and any other intangible repercussions of your injuries.

Economic Damages

A severe burn injury could mean a more extended recovery period. Economic damages reimburse you for medical expenses, including:

  • Surgeries,
  • Hospitalization,
  • Medications, 
  • Travel costs from and to the hospital or specialized care centers,
  • ER treatment,
  • Physical therapy,
  • Psychological counseling, and
  • Any other expenses for ongoing treatment.

If you cannot work as you recover, you can qualify for damages for lost income. Additionally, if the injuries leave a lasting or permanent effect that makes you incapable of earning the same wages as you used to before your injuries, you can recover compensation for lost or diminished future earning capacity.

Punitive Damages

You might recover punitive damages if the liable party acted grossly negligently or recklessly. Judges rarely award these damages. Unlike non-economic and economic damages that compensate the plaintiff, these damages are meant to punish the responsible party and caution them and other people against similar conduct in the days to come.

The degree of your burns, whether or not they will have a long-lasting effect on you, your age, and where and how your injuries occurred play a significant role in how much your lawsuit is worth. Your award or settlement will also be significantly based on the liable party's intent and capability of paying.

Nevada has a one hundred thousand dollars cap on compensation in burn injury lawsuits against government employees. For instance, if involved in an auto crash with a government worker when they are on duty, the compensation amount you can collect will be limited. If the judge awards you punitive damages, they will not exceed three hundred thousand dollars if the awarded compensatory damages (non-economic and economic damages) amount is below a hundred thousand dollars. If the awarded compensatory damages amount is above a hundred thousand, punitive damages will not exceed three times the awarded economic damages amount.

However, the state's law does not have a punitive damages cap when the burn injuries result from:

  • Driving under the influence (if the alcohol consumption or drug use was willful)
  • Hazardous or radioactive material
  • A defective productive

What If You Are Partly Responsible for the Burn Injury?

You can still file a lawsuit. Nevada applies the modified comparative negligence rule in personal injury cases. This law permits you to hold multiple parties responsible and limits your compensation amount if you are partly responsible for your burn injuries.

For instance, if the court awards you a hundred thousand dollars and finds you 40% to blame for your burns, you will receive 60% only or sixty thousand dollars. Having a burn injury lawyer helping you is critical to ensure liability falls on the correct party and that you acquire your deserved compensation. Under the modified comparative negligence rule, you are forbidden from recovering damages if the court finds you more than 50 percent at fault.

Speak to a Las Vegas Personal Injury Lawyer Near Me

At Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney Law Firm, our lawyers boast the experience and expertise needed to handle several types of burn injury lawsuits. If you have sustained a severe burn injury in Las Vegas, we are on standby to help you file a lawsuit and recover the compensation you deserve. To schedule a free, confidential consultation, contact us today at 702-996-1224.