Brownsville Burn Injury Lawyer

Determining the Severity of Your Burns

According to the American Burn Association, hundreds of thousands suffer from severe burn injuries each year which can result in extreme pain, tissue damage, permanent scars, even death.

In Texas, you need a medical professional (preferably from a hospital such as Valley Regional Medical Center or Solara Hospital Brownsville) to evaluate your burns after the injury is sustained. In so doing, they will classify the severity of your burns using a four scale system.

1. First-degree burns are the least damaging. These only impact the outer layer of skin and are equivalent to a sunburn. No medical treatment is typically required.
2. Second-degree burns affect the dermis and are often experienced when, for example, a burn is severe enough that it blisters or causes pain.
3. Third-degree burns are severe, medically speaking, and impact the skin and tissue below. The skin will change color and be quite painful. Professional medical attention is required at this level.
4. Fourth-degree burns are incredibly severe, but the least common. These burn skin, tissue, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bones, often resulting in the need for amputation, permanent disfigurement, or death.

How Do I Get Burn Injury Compensation?

To receive compensation in Texas, you should work with a Brownsville burn injury lawyer to determine whether the injury took place at work and therefore requires a worker’s compensation claim, or whether it was the result of negligence (i.e., product liability or a car accident) and requires a negligence lawsuit.

In Texas, you need to prove negligence by the four-tier system, which requires you to:

• First, prove that the defendant had a duty of care—a responsibility to avoid causing harm to others.
• Second, prove that this responsibility was breached.
• Third, prove that said breach directly resulted in your burns and had they not breached their duty of care you would not have been burned.
• Fourth, prove that you have endured financial strain as a result and are owed compensation.

Consider this: if you burn your hand touching hot metal and can prove the first three negligence items, but the burn was a first-degree burn that went away without medical care, lack of medical bills and without the injury impacting the rest of your life, it would not be adequate for pursuing a case. By comparison, if that burn was a third-degree burn with multiple bills, it would be.

If you were burned while on the job, you won’t have to file a negligence claim or prove negligence; instead, you would file a worker’s compensation claim with your employer’s insurance company. You need only show you were burned while performing your work duties.

When presenting your case, you can be compensated for any of the following damages if you can prove negligence or that the burn happened at work:

• Medical expenses relating to the burns
• Out of pocket expenses related to the injury
• Lost wages
• Pain and suffering (especially for disfigurement or amputation)
• Punitive damages