Burn injuries cause some of the most difficult medical and emotional recoveries in personal injury law. Big Dog Law builds claims that fund grafts, scar revision, vocational retraining, and the long-term toll burns take on a life.
Burn injuries are not a single category. A second-degree burn from a faulty appliance and a deep thermal burn from a workplace explosion call for completely different medical roads — and completely different legal cases. What they share is a slow recovery, repeated procedures, scarring that sometimes never fully resolves, and an emotional cost that does not appear on any bill. We build burn-injury claims around that whole picture.
At a glance
The hospital bill is the easy part to document. The harder — and more valuable — part is everything that comes after: months or years of dressing changes, scar-management therapy, additional surgeries, sometimes mental health treatment, and the social and vocational impact of visible scarring. Insurers know this and routinely make early offers that close the case before those costs are understood.
American Burn Association
Vehicle fires
Post-collision fuel-system fires, lithium battery thermal events, fuel leaks.
Defective products
Heaters, appliances, e-cigarettes, power tools, lithium-ion batteries.
Workplace incidents
Industrial burns, chemical exposure, arc flash, explosion injuries.
Apartment and building fires
Faulty wiring, missing or non-functional smoke alarms, blocked egress.
Restaurant and hospitality scalds
Hot liquids served without warning or proper containment.
Electrical burns
Improperly maintained equipment, code violations, untrained labor.
Chemical burns
Industrial spills, mislabeled containers, defective consumer products.
First-degree
Outermost layer of skin only. Painful and red, but typically heals without scarring.
Second-degree
Damage extends past the top layer. Blistering and significant pain. Risk of scarring without proper care.
Third-degree
Full-thickness damage destroys the skin and may extend to underlying tissue. Almost always requires grafting.
Fourth-degree
Damage through skin into muscle, tendon, or bone. Catastrophic.
The classification drives the medical course, the cost, and ultimately the value of the claim. Documentation of the actual depth and total body surface area (%TBSA) burned is one of the first things we lock down in the medical record.
Acute and reconstructive medical care
Hospitalization, grafting, scar revision, and the multi-year follow-up most serious burns require.
Mental-health treatment
Burn injuries carry a high incidence of PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Treatment is recoverable.
Lost wages and reduced earning capacity
Time off work, retraining, and any career-long effect of the injury.
Disfigurement and scarring
Recognized as compensable in Arizona. Visible scarring carries lasting personal and professional impact.
Pain and loss of enjoyment of life
The non-economic toll of the injury and the recovery process.
Punitive damages
Available in cases of egregious or grossly negligent conduct.
Burn injuries demand a claim built for the long arc of recovery — not the first 30 days.
Free, confidential consultation. No fee unless we recover.
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