Burn Injury Lawyer

Burn injuries are common in the United States. Most are minor and heal with basic first aid treatment. However, some inflict a far heavier toll. Fire and burns constitute the leading causes of accidental death among adults and children in the United States. Individuals who survive severe burn injuries often live in debilitating pain and endure long-lasting physical and emotional trauma with wide-ranging effects on their everyday lives.

Victims of burn injuries caused by someone else’s wrongful actions deserve compensation to help them regain their health and move forward with their lives. A trusted burn injury attorney from Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, can help. Contact us today for a free case evaluation.

Why Choose Dolman Law Group

Our mission for our clients is to secure them as much money as possible as soon as possible, to provide them with the financial support they need. Over our years of law practice, the attorneys of Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, have secured tens of millions of dollars for injured clients, including clients who have suffered serious burn injuries with debilitating effects.

Our compassionate personal injury lawyers understand the challenges you face. We spend our careers fighting to make sure that victims of accidental, preventable injuries like yours receive compensation from the individuals, corporations, organizations, and others whose dangerous choices caused them harm.

Our impressive track record of success does not guarantee results for our clients. It does, however, give them confidence in knowing that their lawyers possess the skills, resources, and know-how to get them the money they deserve.

At Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, our team can:

• Investigate a burn injury accident thoroughly, acting quickly and decisively to secure evidence critical to proving liability and damages;
• Dive into the details of a burn injury to determine who may owe damages to the burn victim and how much money the victim should receive;
• Answer clients questions and provide them with updates on their cases in plain English, not legalese;
• Prepare and file the necessary documents to pursue a lawsuit or insurance claim;
• Retain experts to analyze and support a burn injury case;
• Negotiate settlements with defense lawyers and insurance companies when possible;
• Take a burn injury case to trial in front of a judge and jury.

Types of Burn Injuries We Handle

Typically, we tend to think of burns as caused by heat. However, exposure to other elements can damage and kill skin tissue in ways we categorize as burns.

At Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, our team of award-winning burn injury lawyers can help clients secure compensation for any burn type:

• Thermal burns consist of skin injuries caused by exposure to excessive heat, such as by touching a hot stove or open flame.
• Cold burns damage skin by freezing it. Frostbite is a type of cold burn. Cold burns can also happen if the skin comes in contact with extremely cold chemicals, such as Freon, liquid nitrogen, or dry ice.
• Friction burns result from skin rubbing against a surface in such a way as to generate heat and abrasions. Road rash, carpet burns, and rope burns are all examples of friction burns.
• Radiation burns constitute damage to skin tissue from exposure to certain types of electromagnetic radiation. Sunburns, for example, are caused by ultraviolet radiation. Exposure to radioactive materials or radiation-based medical treatments can also cause radiation burns.
• Chemical burns, or caustic burns, occur when the eyes or the skin come into contact with a chemical irritant that damages tissue. Drain cleaners, gasoline, and other common chemical products can all cause chemical burns.
• Electrical burns happen when your body comes into contact with an electric current. The current can damage external and internal tissue directly, and can also inflict a thermal burn when the electric current is converted into thermal energy.

In other words, regardless of what kind of burn a person suffers, we can help seek compensation for it if it results from someone else’s unreasonably dangerous conduct or decisions.

Preventable Causes of a Burn Injury

A host of incidents and accidents can lead to a person suffering a severe burn. Many causes of severe burns involve a mistake, moment of carelessness, or reckless act by someone apart from the burn victim. If your burn injury was caused by someone else’s negligence, you may be able to file a personal injury lawsuit for damages.

At Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, our job is to hold parties accountable when they make decisions or take actions that trigger or facilitate a chain of events leading to someone getting badly burned.

Our team has the resources and experience to seek compensation for burn injury claims arising out of:

• Residential and apartment building fires;
• Industrial and workplace fires;
• Spills of scalding hot liquids;
• Caustic chemical spills and splashes;
• Motor vehicle accidents;
• Restaurant and commercial kitchen fires;
• Accidental contact with live electrical wires;
• Explosions and fires on oil rigs and at petrochemical storage facilities;
• Medical malpractice involving the misuse of radiation therapy; and
• Overheating and fires involving defective consumer products, such as toys or home appliances.

This is not a complete list, of course. The Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA team can help clients secure compensation for burn injuries arising out of virtually any circumstance involving someone else’s wrongful actions.

Rating the Severity of Burn Injuries

Medical professionals rate burns by their degree of severity on a scale of one to four. All but first-degree burns can inflict harm sufficient to disrupt a person’s life and to require compensation from the party at fault for causing them.

First-Degree Burns

A first-degree burn is considered a superficial wound, as it only affects the skin’s outermost layer, called the epidermis. It is the mildest form of burn injury and rarely requires medical treatment beyond basic first aid. However, sometimes a first-degree burn can cause sufficient pain to require medical attention, especially if it occurs in connection with another medical condition.

First-degree burns are often characterized by minor inflammation, pain, sensitivity to touch, and redness. They can usually be treated with cool water and aloe vera or similar ointments, and may heal in a week.

Second-Degree Burns

A second-degree burn causes damage to the epidermis and the layer of skin tissue beneath it, known as the dermis. It often appears moist or wet, develops blisters, and causes intense pain. A second-degree may require medical treatment beyond first aid, and can take weeks to heal. Second-degree burns also pose a potential risk for infection.

Third-Degree Burns

Third-degree burns destroy the epidermis and dermis and can damage the layer of fat beneath. The burned area may appear brown, black, or white instead of red and can take on a leathery appearance.

Third-degree burns can also destroy pain-sensing nerves in the lower layers of the skin, and the burned area may feel numb. They require immediate medical attention and, frequently, hospitalization in a burn unit because they pose a high risk of infection and may need surgical treatment. Third-degree burns that heal commonly leave behind extensive scars.

Fourth-Degree Burns

Fourth-degree burns destroy both layers of skin and the fat beneath, and may damage muscles, tendons, nerves, and bones. They also destroy nerve endings. A fourth-degree burn is a life-threatening medical emergency. Without medical attention, the burn victim will likely die. Treatment for a fourth-degree burn virtually always requires hospitalization in a burn unit, extensive surgical intervention, and months of recovery time.

What Types of Complications Can Result From a Burn Injury?

Severe and sometimes life-threatening complications can result from any degree of burn injury. For example, a first-degree burn over a sufficiently large area of the body can endanger a person’s life, especially in young children or the elderly.

However, severe complications most commonly arise from higher-degree burns, including:

• Infection leading to sepsis, a severe and potentially life-threatening immune response;
• Heart rhythm disturbance, called arrhythmia, often caused by electrical burns;
• Severe dehydration leading to organ failure;
• Excess fluid and swelling in the tissues, known as edema;
• Disfiguring scars;
• Pneumonia;
• Extremely low blood pressure, which can cause shock; and
• Damage to limbs and appendages so severe as to require amputation.

This is not a complete list, but it illustrates the sort of catastrophic complications a severe burn injury can cause, for which victims deserve compensation.

Steps to Take After Suffering a Burn Injury

The steps you take after suffering a burn can affect your health, wellbeing, finances, and legal rights. Following the tips below can help to put you in a favorable position for securing the compensation you deserve.

Seek Medical Help

Always err on the side of caution when it comes to seeking medical care for a burn. For anything but what you are 100 percent certain is a first-degree burn, seek immediate medical care from your primary care doctor, at an urgent care clinic, or a hospital emergency room. Do not wait for your injury to develop severe complications before seeking medical care. Infections and other health complications from burns can set in rapidly and leave you in a perilous state.

In addition to protecting your health, seeking medical assistance ensures that you have medical records demonstrating a direct link between your burn injury and the accident or injury that caused it. That documentation can constitute important evidence for a lawyer to use when pursuing compensation on your behalf.

Take Pictures of Your Injury

Unpleasant as it may sound, creating visual records of your burn injury can help you obtain the compensation you deserve. Your doctor may take images of your burns, but if not, then having images of the burn that reflect its severity and extent can serve as powerful evidence of what happened to you. Pictures can also document the healing of your burn, which illustrates the duration of and challenges you faced in your physical recovery.

Consider Keeping a Journal

Another way to document everything you have been through is to keep a journal that tracks how you feel while undergoing treatments, the extent of your pain and suffering, and how the injury has affected your life and your family’s life. Over time, memories of the incident and the challenges you faced as you healed can fade. Writing your thoughts down in a journal can ensure that you preserve details that may prove critical to seeking compensation.

Contact an Experienced Burn Injury Lawyer

If your burn injury results from someone else’s unreasonably dangerous decisions or actions, then chances are you have legal rights to receive compensation from that party. Our personal injury attorneys can work with you to explore your options, and can act to get you the money you deserve. The sooner you speak with an experienced burn injury attorney, the better your chances of a favorable financial outcome.

Frequently Asked Questions About Burn Injury Cases

Victims of a burn injury accident are often left with devastating harm, debilitating pain, and extensive physical and emotional scars that forever turn their life upside down. In addition, burn injuries often result in extensive medical expenses that these victims can ill afford to pay.

Victims of burn injuries come to us at Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, with many questions about their rights and options for seeking compensation from the parties at fault for their burns. Below, we answer some of the most common of those questions. For answers to specific questions about a burn injury suffered by you or a loved one, contact our team today.

Do I have the right to sue someone for my burn injuries?

Possibly. Every case is different, so the most reliable way to know for sure what your rights are is to speak with an experienced burn injury attorney.

In general, to file a personal injury claim for compensation, your lawyer must prove that you suffered a burn injury due to another person’s intentional acts, reckless behavior, or negligence.

Typically, burn injury lawyers must show that:

• Someone owed you a duty of care not to act in a way that put you at unreasonable risk of suffering a burn injury;
• That someone breached the duty of care owed to you by engaging in unreasonably dangerous conduct or by making unreasonably dangerous decisions;
• The breach of the duty of care caused your burn injury; and
• You suffered damages.

Lawyers for burn injury victims prove these facts by collecting evidence of how a burn injury happened, who was to blame for it, and the extent of the victim’s injuries and losses.

No one expects you to know for sure if a lawyer can prove these facts in your case. That is why the team at Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, encourages you to contact us today for a free consultation to begin exploring your rights and options.

Who can I hold financially responsible for my burn injury?

It depends entirely on the particular circumstances of the accident or incident that resulted in your burn. Parties who may owe compensation for causing someone’s burn injury could include:

• The manufacturer of a defective consumer product that malfunctioned, caught fire, and burned the victim;
• The owner of a building that caught fire because of dangerous wiring the owner should have fixed, resulting in burn injuries to the people inside;
• A medical professional who accidentally burned a patient while administering radiation therapy; or
• A gas company that failed to maintain pipes and other infrastructure for carrying natural gas, leading to an explosion that burned multiple victims.

Clients who hire Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, get a law firm committed to delving deep into the facts and circumstances of the accident or incident that caused their burns. We do not stop until we have identified all parties who may owe damages for the burn injuries and related trauma our clients have suffered.

What compensation can I receive for my burn injuries?

Your compensation in a burn injury lawsuit depends on the circumstances of how the incident happened. In general, however, if you have the right to sue the party at fault for causing your burn injuries, then you may have the ability to obtain payment for:

Economic Damages

• Medical expenses for past, current, and future medical treatment (such as doctor visits, surgeries, rehabilitative therapy, hospital stay, and prescription medications)
• Lost wages from missing work while recovering from burn injuries
• Lost earning capacity when a burn injury prevents you from returning to work in your previous capacity, or at all;
• Repairing or replacing personal property damaged in the accident that burned you;
• Services such as in-home nursing care, child care, grocery shoppers, and house cleaners, when a burn injury impairs your ability to perform those tasks yourself; and
• Other out-of-pocket expenses your burn injury caused you to incur.

Non-Economic Damages

• Physical pain;
• Emotional anguish;
• Loss of companionship or consortium;
• Diminished enjoyment of life;
• Loss of a limb or bodily function; and
• Disfigurement and scarring.

In some cases, a court may also order punitive damages as punishment for someone’s extreme or outrageous behavior that resulted in you suffering a burn injury.

No lawyer can guarantee that you will receive compensation for your burn injury. You can give yourself the strongest chance of obtaining the compensation you deserve, however, by hiring a law firm, like Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, that possesses years of experience representing burn victims like you, and has a track record of success to show for it.

Will I need to bring in expert witnesses to prove my case?

Possibly, but that not something you need to worry about doing on your own when you have a skilled burn injury attorney working for you.

Sometimes, skilled attorneys hire experts to analyze the evidence in a burn injury case and to offer opinions that help prove liability and damages. Common experts in burn injury cases often include fire and arson investigators, forensic engineers, product safety specialists, and burn doctors.

At Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, we have access to an extensive network of experts who we can call upon to help us understand and prove our clients’ cases.

How long do I have to file a burn injury claim?

A law called a statute of limitations sets the maximum amount of time an individual has to file a claim after suffering a burn injury. If the victim does not begin a lawsuit within this allotted deadline, then the law bars the victim from filing the claim in the future.

The statute of limitations for a burn injury claim varies from state to state, and sometimes different time limits may apply depending on how a burn injury happened and who caused it. The amount of time you may have to take legal action seeking compensation for your burn injury could be as little as just a few months from the date of your injury to several years.

Do not risk missing a critically important deadline in your burn injury claim. Contact Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, today to learn about how much time you have to get started seeking the compensation you deserve.

How much money can I collect for my burn injury?

No two injuries are alike, and so every case needs to be evaluated on its own to determine how much money a burn injury victim may recover from parties at-fault.

In general, the amount of money your lawyer may have the ability to secure for you as compensation can depend on factors such as:

• The degree of severity of the burn that you suffered;
• Where the burn injury occurred on your body;
• Medical complications you face because of the burn injury;
• The extent of your pain and suffering resulting from the burn injury;
• Whether the burn injury left you with scars, and if so, on what part of your body;
• The impact the burn injury has had on your ability to work;
• The strength of the evidence proving who was at-fault for your burn injury;
• The strength of the evidence proving the damages you deserve to receive;
• The financial resources of the party at-fault for your burn injury.

As we said, no lawyer can guarantee that you will receive compensation for a burn injury. However, you can increase your odds of a favorable financial outcome by hiring a law firm with experience, skill, and a strong reputation in burn injury cases, like Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA.

What are my rights if I suffered my burn injury at work?

Most individuals who suffer work-related burn injuries have the right to receive workers’ compensation benefits to pay for their medical care and to replace some of the income they lose because of the injury. Workers’ compensation is a form of insurance that employers in every state must purchase for their employees and which covers employees against most work-related injuries and illnesses, regardless of who is at fault for causing them.

Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, represents injured workers in all stages of the process of securing workers’ compensation benefits.

In addition to receiving workers’ comp, a worker who suffered burn injuries on the job may also have the right to sue an at-fault party for damages. By and large, workers’ compensation laws prevent workers from suing the employers who purchased workers’ compensation insurance for them, even if those employers are at fault for causing worker injuries.

However, if a work-related burn injury happens because of the careless or reckless actions of a third party (someone besides an employer or co-worker), then the injured employee may have the option of suing that at-fault party for compensation over-and-above whatever the employee receives from workers’ comp.

The team at Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, examines the facts carefully in every case of workplace injury we handle to make sure that we know the full range of options available to our clients for seeking the money they deserve.

The at-fault party’s insurance company offered me a settlement for my burn injury. Should I take it?

Accepting money from the insurance company representing the party who caused your burn injury may feel like a no-brainer, but it might not be in your best interest. We strongly encourage you to speak with an experienced burn injury attorney first before agreeing to any settlement money an insurance company offers to compensate you for your burn injury.

Insurance companies whose policyholders owe you damages for your burn injury want to resolve their financial liability to you for as little money as possible. One way they try to do that is to make a direct offer to you—before you have a lawyer—for far less money than you actually deserve. They hope that you will take it before you realize how much more you should receive.

The team at Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, urges you, in the strongest possible terms, not to make the tragic mistake of agreeing to an inadequate settlement offer. Instead, contact a skilled burn injury lawyer to learn what your case is really worth. In most cases, that lawyer can take over negotiations with the insurance company on your behalf and get you far more money than the insurance company initially offered.

Experienced Burn Injury Attorneys

Burn injuries exact a heavy toll on victims and their families. During a difficult time, they need a steady, guiding hand to help them secure the compensation they need.

Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, is an award-winning law firm representing burn injury victims nationwide. We fight for the compensation our clients deserve and have a track record of success to show for our efforts.

If a burn injury has disrupted your life or the life of a loved one, do not wait to get the legal help you need. Contact Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, today for a free case consultation with a member of our team.