How a Burn Injury Lawyer Can Help You Prove Negligence

Burn injuries are painful, devastating, and often life-altering for a victim and their family. They are also often quite preventable, which is why it’s often worthwhile to pursue a personal injury case.

A burn injury lawyer can help prove your injury was a result of negligence and assist you in receiving burn injury compensation. We will explain how in this blog, but don’t hesitate to call our Buffalo office at (716) 854-0700 or fill out our online contact form if you wish to schedule a free consultation.

Burn Injury SuitsSuffer from an Unfair Stigma

There is some lingering stigma around lawsuits involving burns.

When we think of burn injury lawsuits, what is often top of mind is the 1992 McDonald’s coffee lawsuit, in which a woman sued the restaurant chain for negligence because she was burned by hot coffee.

This case is often thought to be just a frivolous lawsuit or even a money grab on the part of the victim. However, the 79-year-old victim’s injuries were severe enough that she was hospitalized for eight days. She received intense care for third-degree burns, including tissue removal and skin grafts. In total, she required about 2 years of medical treatment. 

The victim’s burn injury attorney was able to prove negligence on the part of McDonald’s.It’s still widely believed that she spilled the coffee on herself while driving, but the spill actually happened while she was a passenger in a car stopped in the McDonald’s parking lot.The temperature of the coffee was also believed to be 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit as required by restaurant policy at the time.Similar restaurants served coffee at around 160 degrees, requiring longer exposure time to cause serious burns.

If you’ve experienced a burn injury, you may feel reluctant to seek advocacy in fear of public stigma. However, this stigma is misguided. A skilled burn injury lawyer can assess your case thoroughly todetermine its legitimacy prior to filing a suit.

Burn Injuries and Negligence

Not all burn injuries can be attributed to the negligence of a third party. For a burn injury to be a negligence case, a person or entity other than the victim must be responsible for the cause of the burn, typically through one of the following means:

Faulty or unsafe products

In the case of the famous McDonald’s coffee, the McDonald’s corporation was found negligent because they kept their coffee at extremely unsafe temperatures and failed to warn consumers of the risk of burns.

Other product-related negligence examples include an electrician improperly wiring a circuit or a toy company manufacturing items with batteries that overheat. Unsafe products could also include chemicals and cleaning products that cause chemical burns with prolonged exposure.

Poor or improperly followed safety protocols

If the burn injury occurs in a workplace that fails to follow proper Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirementsorfails to provide proper training and personal protective equipment, the employer may be found negligent.

Unsafe premises

If a person is harmed in a building fire due to a landlord or property manager failing to abide by building fire and safety codes, the person responsible for maintaining the building could be found negligent.

BLOG: Can I Sue My Landlord for Personal Injury?

Caregiver negligence

If a person is burned in their place of care such as a nursing home, school, or daycare, due to a caregiver’s failure to provide proper assistance and safe handling of burn hazards, the caregiver or their institution could be guilty of negligence.

Just because a burn injury occurred in similar circumstances to those outlined above doesn’t automatically mean that the victim has a negligence case. For instance, if a product is known to be hazardous and has adequate warnings and safety instructions which the user fails to follow, resulting in a burn injury, the manufacturer would most likely not be considered responsible.

How is Negligence Established for Burn Injuries?

For a burn injury to be a proven result of negligence, a few elements must be verified. A burn injury lawyer can assess your accident to prove whether these components are present.

Duty of care

Was the person or entity under a legal obligation to prevent the harm that the victim experienced? If they created a hazardous product without proper warnings, or if they are an employer or caregiver, then the answer is yes, they are legally obligated to strive to prevent harm to the consumer, employee, or charge under their care.

Breach of duty

If a duty of care is present, then the next question is whether the party breached their duty. If they were under an obligation to prevent injuries to the victim by warning of potential hazards, following safety protocols, taking care of a vulnerable person in their care, or other such duties, then failure to do so would be considered breach of duty.

Causation

If the first two criteria have been established, then the next step is for the burn injury lawyer to prove that the victim’s burn injury was directly caused by the action or inaction of the alleged negligent party.

For example, imagine if the burn victim worked in a chemical plant. Their supervisor did not provide adequate safety training, protocol, or personal protective equipment. However, while the injury did occur in the workplace, it was a result of a candle that the staff member had at their desk rather than anything related to the company’s practices. In this case, even though the employer technically did hold duty of care and was guilty of breaching duty, they were not the cause of the injury and therefore cannot be found negligent.

In calculating causation, a burn injury lawyer must also keep in mind proximate cause of harm. Proximate cause of harm refers to how able the alleged negligent party was to anticipate their actions or inactions causing harm to the injured party.

For example, in the McDonald’s coffee case, McDonald’s had already settled several burn injury suits because of their hot coffee. Therefore, the corporation could not use the potential defense that they didn’t know their coffee came with risk of burns. McDonald’s had proximate cause of harm.

Damages

Once the first three criteria for negligence have been proven, a burn injury lawyer must account for damages. If an accident occurs and all three of the criteria are met, but the consumer, charge, employee, or other potential victim was not harmed and their life was not in any way impacted, a negligence suit would not hold up in court.

The calculation of damages can also impact a burn injury victim’s compensation. A burn injury lawyer can help to account for medical costs, lost wages, pain and suffering, or even wrongful deathif the victim’s injuries were fatal.

Injured by a burn due to negligence? Contact Feroleto Law

If you or a loved one have experienced a severe burn injury due to negligence in Buffalo or anywhere else in New York State,our attorneys can help you get the compensation you need to get your life back.

Call our office at (716) 854-0700 or fill out our contact form to schedule a confidential, complimentary consultation.

The content provided here is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject.

Sources:

https://www.citizen.org/article/legal-myths-the-mcdonalds-hot-coffee-case/

https://www.findlaw.com/injury/accident-injury-law/proving-fault-what-is-negligence.html#:~:text=Fact%2DChecked,accidents%20and%20keep%20others%20safe.