While you might not give too much thought to it, burn injuries affect nearly 3 million people a year in the United States alone, with a high percentage of those burns affecting at least 25% of the victim’s body. Astonishingly, burn injuries are second to car crashes as a leading cause of death. It takes education and experience to become a great Austin Burn Injury Lawyer. Our Attorneys have litigated burn injury cases, and have the experience and education to handle your case too!
While most people think of burn injuries as being related to fire, there are other causes as well. Radiation, heat, chemicals, and electricity may also cause burn injuries. For instance, a person may suffer a thermal burn from boiling water or a chemical burn from acid. Radiation burns result from over-exposure to UV lamps and electrical burns result from electrical shocks.
Types of Burn Injuries
All burns are classified by degrees – first degree, second degree, third degree, fourth degree, fifth and sixth-degree burns. Burns are classified by the depth of tissue damage involved. First-degree burns usually involve damage to the outer skin layer and heal rapidly. Second-degree burns cause damage to the outer and inner layers of skin and third-degree burns cause significant damage to blood vessels and muscles.
Fourth-degree burns have gone right through the skin into muscles and tendons and have resulted in charring and extreme damage to the hypodermis, usually requiring skin grafting. Fifth-degree burns indicate the hypodermis – the layer that stores our fat cells – is completely gone and the ligaments, muscles, tendons, and bones may be damaged. Sixth-degree burns are frequently fatal and often burn the bones. If a victim survives this level of suffering, they likely face amputation.
Austin Burn Injury Lawyer Advice after a Burn Injury
Burn injury victims often have a long and painful recovery. It is not uncommon for a client to approach us long after they have been released from the hospital and are well into the rehabilitation process. It is understandable that you want to focus on your recovery first. Texas law, however, limits how long you have to file a lawsuit after you’ve been injured by the negligence of another. Additionally, there are generally no laws that require a potential defendant to save evidence that could be used against them in court.
We often tell people to contact us as soon as possible after a burn injury. Our Austin Burn Injury Lawyer can get to work preserving evidence, and putting potential defendants on notice that they should preserve specific types of evidence. If they fail to preserve that evidence after receiving our notification, a Court may presume that the evidence they failed to preserve would have helped us prove our case. In extreme cases, a Court may also take other actions against such a defendant that will help you get a fair settlement or verdict.
Damages in Burn Injury Cases
Our Austin Burn Injury Lawyer understands the severe injuries you face after being burned. Survivors often experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), phantom pains, nerve sensation, physical deformation, and many more injuries. Part of successfully educating a jury about the harm you suffered from a burn injury is showing them each of the ways your injury has impacted your life.
Juries often relate to the tremendous pain and emotional scarring suffered by burn injury victims. We work with you to show the jury the difference in your daily life before your injury versus after your injury. This often requires testimony from you, your family, friends, and co-workers. We work with you to develop a complete picture of the extent of your damages so we can show that to the jury.
Defective Products Burn Injuries
Sometimes a product is defective which in turn causes burn injuries. These are known as product liability cases. We have successfully tried products liability cases to verdict, and know how to find out how a product failed, and why that failure makes that company liable for your injuries. Some of the more common types of product liability cases involving severe burns include:
- Space heaters
- Electrical cords
- Improper chemicals added to skincare and other products
- Faulty design of safety mechanism meant to act as a fail-safe in fuel supply systems
Whether a product manufacturer is responsible for your burn injuries is often a matter for the jury to decide. These cases often rely on the testimony and expertise of engineers, product designers, and many others. Product manufacturers generally have a legal obligation to provide a safe product to their customers. One of the more common defenses used by manufacturers, however, is that to make the product safer would have increased the price of the product so high they would not have earned a profit. This can become a question of public policy.
Public policy doesn’t generally require a product manufacturer from protecting their customers from all harm that could happen. It generally only requires them to protect themselves from the unreasonable risk of harm. This is where an Austin Burn Injury Lawyer has to help educate the jury about the reasonableness of the harm you suffered. We will talk to you more about this during your Free Case Evaluation!
Austin Burn Injury Lawyer Summary
In most cases, you are entitled to receive money if you have been burned because of someone else’s negligence. Whether you were burned because of a defective product, negligent exposure to chemicals, or improper wiring, we have the experience and knowledge to get you a fair verdict or settlement for your burn injuries.
Burn injuries are extremely costly to treat, and victims often have lifelong disabilities. It’s important that we start our investigation of your case as soon as possible so that evidence is not lost. We understand the long, hard road burn injury victims face as they recover from these horrible injuries. We strive to document that road to recovery and explain it to a jury so you get the money you deserve for your injury. If you or a loved one has suffered a burn injury contact us right now for a free, no-obligation case evaluation!