As one of the most catastrophic injuries, burn injuries may lead to unexpected and life-altering changes for you and your family. Ranging from mild to severe, burns may occur due to interactions with flames, harsh chemicals, extremely hot surfaces or fluids or even radiation. While many of these injuries are treated by medical personnel, there are also ways a burn injury lawyer may be able to help you gain rightful compensation to get you on a better path to healing.
Defining Common Burn Injury Claims
Burn injury claims may result from a variety of circumstances such as car accidents, home fires, work-related accidents and more. According to the American Burn Association, over 1.1 million Americans experience a burn injury each year — whether by accident or due to another’s negligence.
Most burn injury claims involve these serious situations:
- Coming in contact with fire or flames in a car accident, work accident, defective product or other circumstances.
- Touching a hot surface such as a burner on a stove top.
- Scalding injuries from hot water or hot liquids such as coffee, tea or soup.
- Electrical burns as a result of electrocution.
- Chemical burns after coming in contact with harsh chemicals.
- Firework accidents or contact with other explosives.
While a majority of these injuries may happen on accident at home, a burn injury lawyer will be able to help you determine if your burn injury was due to another’s negligence.
Determining the Negligent Party
When a burn injury is due to another’s negligence, our burn injury lawyers first begin by gathering evidence to support your claim since the burden of proof falls on the injured party’s shoulders. After a thorough investigation, we develop a case by examining the four elements of filing a personal injury claim.
The four elements include:
1. Did the person have a duty to exercise reasonable care? This means the person, persons or company’s legal duty to act in a certain manner at the time of your incident. This type of duty owed depends on the parties and what they are doing at the time of the incident, such as operating a vehicle or maintaining a store.
2. Did the person fail to exercise reasonable care? This means the person or persons responsible for your accident did something careless that could have easily been prevented. For example, if you experienced an electrocution injury due to a faulty, exposed wire while on the job, your company may be held liable for not exercising reasonable care at the time of your work-related injury.
3. Is causation present? Causation is the direct link between the negligent act and the harm that was caused to the victim. For example, if someone set off a firework toward a group of people rather than the sky, there is causation present due to the person’s failure to set off the firework in a safe manner.
4. Did you suffer actual damages? You must be able to prove that you were injured as a result of the accident. Providing medical records, time away from work and medical bills will help your burn injury lawyer prove that you suffered as a direct result of the burn injury you obtained.
Your St. Louis Burn Injury Lawyers
Burn injuries are a serious injury that may leave you and your family wondering where to turn after an accident. Our burn injury lawyers are ready to step in and help you navigate the personal injury claim process so you will be able to obtain rightful compensation to move forward. If you experienced a severe burn injury as a result of another’s negligence, contact the personal injury attorneys at MHM for a free consultation.