Each year, approximately 450,000 serious burn injuries occur in the United States, demanding medical treatment, according to the American Burn Association (ABA).

If your South Carolina burn injury was caused by carelessness or another improper act, you may be entitled to compensation to assist with a potentially costly recovery. In South Carolina, you have legal alternatives if you sustain a burn injury. If you or a loved one was seriously burned in South Carolina, you may be able to recover damages by bringing a lawsuit.

Most burn injuries are covered by 3 sources of action:

1)  Filing A Negligence-Based Personal Injury Case

If your burn damage was caused by someone else's carelessness, that person may be judged negligent.

In South Carolina, you must prove that:

1. The defendant has a duty of care to you.,

2. The defendant violated his duty of care, and

3. the defendant's breach caused your injury.

2)  Filing A Premises Liability Personal Injury Case

Landowners are held liable for injuries to persons on their property under premises liability legislation. A property owner, for example, may be held accountable if one of their wayward rockets burns a spectator.

Whether or not a landowner can be held accountable for a specific harm is determined in part by the reason the injured person was on the property. Landowners are often accountable for unsafe conditions that they neglect to make safe or notify visitors about it.

3)  Filing A Product Liability Personal Injury Lawsuit

A product liability lawsuit is brought about when a defective product causes a harm. There are three categories of faults in South Carolina that can give rise to a product liability lawsuit based on a burn injury:

1. A flaw in the design. A product has a design flaw if it is intrinsically harmful despite being constructed as planned. To put it another way, the only way to make the product safe is to develop a new one.

2. Manufacturing flaw. A manufacturing defect occurs when a product would be safe if properly built, but an error happened during the production process, rendering the product unsafe.

3. Insufficient warnings. The maker may be held accountable if a product does not come with enough warnings.

4. Burns can be caused by a variety of products, including faulty hairdryers, grills, or smartphones.

Compensation For a Burn Damage in South Carolina

Burn sufferers in South Carolina may be eligible to collect the following damages:

Economic damages comprise monetary losses incurred as a result of the burn injury (medical expenditures, lost wages, and property damage).

Non-economic damages are non-monetary costs incurred by a burn injury (pain and suffering, emotional anguish, loss of consortium, etc.).

Punitive damages are intended to penalize the defendant and are only possible when the defendant acted intentionally or negligently.

South Carolina has the following damage caps:

The maximum amount for suing governments and government officials is $300,000 per person or $600,000 per occurrence.

Non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits are limited to $350,000 per defendant and cannot reach $1.05 million for all defendants.

Punitive damages are limited to $500,000 or three times the number of actual damages.

Need Assistance for Filing a Claim?

Contact us to talk with one of our skilled Workers' Compensation Attorneys in South Carolina about your workers' compensation claim. Our attorneys are available to answer any inquiries or address any issues you may have. They are prepared and eager to work hard to ensure that you are fairly paid for your pain and suffering. Contact our offices right away if you have been hurt on the job.