Oklahoma Burn Injury Attorney
Burns occur when the skin and/or underlying tissues suffer damage from contact with thermal, electrical, chemical, or radiation energies. Severe burns can be extremely painful, and require weeks of hospitalization and intensive care. Burn survivors may require surgeries, physical therapy, and other treatments to recover. Physical burn scars may fade, but the emotional trauma can remain long after. A burn injury attorney can help you fight for compensation. If you were the victim of negligence or wrongdoing, it’s important to speak to a burn injury attorney as soon as possible.
To recover for your financial, physical, and emotional damages after a negligence-related burn injury, seek help from the top-rated personal injury lawyers at Bryan & Terrill Law.
Seek Compensation For Serious Burn Injuries in Oklahoma
Not all burns provide grounds for burn injury lawsuits. Someone else’s negligence or intent to harm must have contributed to your injuries for you to have a civil case. For example, burns in a car accident could come down to the fault of a negligent driver. Scalds while cooking from the chef’s own carelessness, on the other hand, would not give the chef the right to sue. Proving negligence for a burn injury requires four main elements:
- Duty. The defendant, or party allegedly responsible for the burn, must have owed the plaintiff (injured party) some type of duty of care at the time of the accident. Most people owe others around them certain duties, whether it’s a general duty not to cause harm or a fiduciary duty from a specific relationship, such as the employer-employee relationship.
- Breach. The defendant must have breached his or her duty of care, or have fallen short of the accepted industry standards. Note that if your burn injury involved a defective product, you won’t have to prove a breach of duty or negligence. You must only show that the product contained a defect, and that this defect caused your burns.
- Causation. The defendant’s breach of duty, act of negligence, or intent to harm must be the proximate cause of your burn injuries. If a clothing iron had a defect, for example, but you sustained your burns from dropping the hot iron on your foot, you likely would not have a case against the manufacturer.
- Damages. The party bringing the claim must have suffered real damages in the incident. This element may require proof of the burn injury and its related costs, such as medical documentation or testimony from an expert witness. Real damages include medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering.
Many burn injuries are single-victim accidents. This can lead victims to believe that they are solely at fault. In Oklahoma, a modified comparative fault rule makes it possible for injured victims to still recover a reduced amount of damages, as long as he or she is less than 50% at fault for the accident. Speak to a burn injury lawyer before assuming you’re ineligible to file a lawsuit after a burn injury at home or in the workplace. Another party such as your employer or a product manufacturer may share the majority of fault.
“Please accept this as my letter of recommendation for an up and coming Law Firm Bryan & Terrill. The Law Firm of Bryan and TerrIll are very thorough and competent professionals who always had my best interests in mind. ” – Bobby J.