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Over a lifetime, not over the hospital stay. A serious burn is not one event. It is grafting, contracture release, scar revision, infection risk and a permanent change in appearance and function. The acute admission is often the smallest part of the lifetime cost.
A first offer is often built on the bills already paid, which leaves out future surgeries, impairment and disfigurement. Those later costs are usually the largest part of what you have lost. What cannot wait is photographing the burns now and keeping every record of your care. Call 713-521-0059.
Flash fires, steam and hot process fluid, electrical arc flash and chemical burns each cause distinct injury patterns and each points at a different failure. The pattern of your injury helps show which failure happened and which company controlled it.
A flash fire may point to a gas leak or poor ventilation. A steam or process fluid burn may point to a failed valve, a line opened without being cleared, or missing protective equipment. An arc flash may point to work on energized equipment. A burn from a product may point to its design or its warnings. Each of those leaves records, and each leads to a different responsible party.
Because they are settled on the medical bills already incurred rather than on the care still to come. Future surgeries, therapy, adaptive equipment and lost earning capacity are proved with a life care plan and an economist, not with a stack of past invoices.
The past bills matter too, but not always at their face amount. Section 41.0105 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code limits recovery of medical expenses to the amounts actually paid or incurred.
Disfigurement and physical impairment can be recovered as separate categories of loss in Texas, and in a burn case they are frequently among the largest elements of the claim. Scarring that changes how you look or how you move can be part of that loss.
Impairment is about function. It can mean losing the full use of a hand, losing range of motion in a joint, or being unable to tolerate heat and sun. Lost earning capacity asks what work is still realistic for you.
Treating physician records, photographs documented over time as the scarring matures, a life care plan, and vocational evidence about what work is still realistic. Photographs taken early and repeated are more persuasive than any description.
Take photographs in good light every few weeks, and keep them with the date. Keep a short journal of what you cannot do, what hurts and what treatment you had that week. Save receipts for dressings, compression garments, travel to the burn unit and anything else you pay for. If the burn happened at work or from a product, keep the clothing, the gloves or the product, and do not throw away anything that was damaged.
Many people with serious burns spend time in a burn unit, then return for dressing changes, therapy and follow-up surgery. Your wounds and your scars will change during that time, and so will your treatment plan. Ask your doctors what care they expect next, and write their answers down. Keep every discharge summary and therapy plan you receive. Those records show your future care long before a life care plan is written.
It depends on whether your employer carries workers’ compensation. If it does not, Section 406.033 of the Texas Labor Code bars it from arguing contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, or the negligence of a fellow employee. If it does, Section 408.001 of the Texas Labor Code generally makes workers’ compensation benefits your exclusive remedy against that employer. The statute preserves one exception, for a worker’s death. Where the employer’s intentional act or omission or gross negligence caused the death, the surviving spouse or heirs of the body may recover exemplary damages. That rule protects your employer and its agents and employees. Other companies may also be involved, such as a contractor, the site owner or a manufacturer. A claim against a company other than your employer can be separate from workers’ compensation. A general contractor can be different. Under Section 406.123, a general contractor that has agreed in writing to provide workers’ compensation coverage to a subcontractor’s employees may be treated as their employer for workers’ compensation purposes.
A Texas personal injury claim generally must be filed within two years after the day the claim accrues, which is usually the date of the injury. That rule is in Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Evidence in an industrial setting moves faster than that. Scenes are cleaned, equipment is repaired and products are thrown away, often within days.
Every statute and case linked above was read at its primary source. Texas statutes change every legislative session and case law is constantly changing.
This page is general information about Texas law. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
A burn claim is built over months, because the scarring changes and the future care becomes clearer with time. The cause, though, has to be pinned down early, while the equipment, the product and the witnesses are still available.
We start with the cause, because each kind of burn points at a different failure and often a different company. Then we build the future side of your claim: treating physician records, dated photographs as the scarring matures, a life care plan, and vocational evidence about what work is still realistic.
Schiffer Law Firm is a Houston personal injury firm with 50 plus years of combined experience representing injured people across Texas.
There is no charge to talk, and no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery.
Written by Jacob Schiffer, Attorney, Schiffer Law Firm. State Bar of Texas No. 24105175.
Call 713-521-0059.
Burn claims are often settled on the medical bills already incurred rather than on the care still to come. Future surgeries, therapy, adaptive equipment and lost earning capacity are proved with a life care plan and an economist.
It can be. Disfigurement and physical impairment can be recovered as separate categories of loss in Texas, and in a burn case they are frequently among the largest elements of the claim.
Section 41.0105 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code limits recovery of medical expenses to the amounts actually paid or incurred. That can be less than the amount billed.
Photographs taken early and repeated as the scarring matures are more persuasive than any description. Date them and keep them together in one place.
It depends on whether your employer carries workers' compensation. If it does, Section 408.001 of the Texas Labor Code generally makes benefits your exclusive remedy against it, with a limited exception for exemplary damages in a death case. If it does not, Section 406.033 limits the defenses it can raise.
A Texas personal injury claim generally must be filed within two years after the day the claim accrues, which is usually the date of the injury. That rule is in Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. The evidence usually moves faster than that.