Who’s Liable for a Burn Injury?

If you’ve suffered a burn injury by no fault of your own, you may be confused as to who’s to blame, when. Burn injury liability is a complex affair, so ultimately, it’s best to talk to a serious injury attorney in Arizona to learn more about who may be liable for your burn. Barring that, there are certain trends you can take stock of to understand who may be at fault.

Understanding Common Types of Burn Injuries

Burn injuries can come from a variety of sources and take a variety of forms, so it’s important to establish what type of burn you’ve suffered before you can establish liability. These sources differ from the better-known degrees of burns and classify the delivery route of a burn first and foremost:

• Contact burns are what most people think of when they imagine a burn, involving contact with a heated surface (usually glass or metal). These can occur in almost any context, whether due to exposed heating elements or simply a hot day.
• Open-flame burns are fairly self-explanatory, referring to burns induced by direct exposure to fire. Property fires, clothing ignition, and gas explosions are among the most common causes of open-flame burns, which can range from being relatively benign to altogether fatal.
• Scalding burns are the most common types of burns and are caused by liquids or vapors, such as water, steam, hot drinks, and so on and so forth. Hot fluids are difficult to remove from the skin, giving them more time to deal damage, whereas vapors may scald the lungs and airway, resulting in severe damage, inflammation, and death by asphyxiation. 
• Electrical and chemical burns are unique, oftentimes resulting in deep-tissue nerve damage, blood toxicity, and other conditions which may be far more severe than the damage may appear. If you experience such an injury, you need immediate treatment, even if your skin appears only slightly burnt.

Establishing Serious Burn Injury Liability in Arizona

In order to determine who may be liable for a burn injury, the most relevant piece of information is often the location you were injured in:

• If you were burned in your home despite your best efforts at burn prevention, you’re likely to have been injured by a defective appliance. If you can demonstrate that the design or manufacturing process was flawed, you can then file a successful claim.
• Burns that occur on someone else’s property, or while working, often constitute premises liability claims, as long as you can prove that a duty of care to you was breached. Poor maintenance, building fires, lacking safety standards, and other such causes of burns will likely place a property owner at fault.
• Auto accidents can, at times, involve car fires and gas explosions, especially when a tanker truck gets involved. These injuries could be the fault of the other driver, but may also be related to faulty vehicle components from the manufacturer, necessitating additional investigation.

ELG has extensive experience with all manner of serious injuries, so give us a call today at (623) 877-3600 to talk to a legal professional in Phoenix. You deserve extensive compensation for the pain, financial loss, and disfigurement often associated with a burn, so don’t delay.