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If you or a member of your family have suffered burns in an accident, then we do not need to tell you that the consequences can be life changing.  Aside from having to endure significant pain, you may also be left with permanent scarring, internal organ damage, full or partial sight or hearing loss and severe psychological trauma. 

In many cases you will need to undergo corrective surgeries, including skin grafts, and receive extensive physiotherapy and counselling.  Where your injuries are particularly severe it may even be necessary for you to have your fingers, hands, toes, feet or one of more limbs surgically amputated and to embark on gruelling rehabilitation.

Our serious injury lawyers understand the battle that you will face and are on hand to help you secure vital compensation to aid your recovery, in any case where your injuries have been caused by someone else’s negligence or criminal behaviour. 

How We Can Help

We can support you to claim compensation where you have:

• Been burnt by a faulty product;
• Suffered an electrical burn, for example as a result of an accident at work;
• Been scalded by hot liquid, for example while in a restaurant;
• Been burnt in a car fire, for example following a road traffic accident;
• Been burnt in a house fire, for example following an arson attack; or
• Suffered a chemical burn while at work or following an acid attack.

Types of injury we can deal with

Our personal injury lawyers can help whether you have suffered:

• First degree burns, affecting the top layer of your skin;
• Second degree burns, which penetrate slightly deeper into your skin;
• Third degree burns, which damage the full thickness of your skin; and
• Fourth degree burns, which go through the skin to your muscles and bone.

Compensation process

Making a claim starts by you coming to meet us for a free initial assessment, during which we will listen as you tell us what has happened and how the injuries you have sustained have impacted you and your loved ones.  

Where we believe that blame for your injuries lies with someone else, we will usually agree to take your case on under a no win, no fee arrangement and begin the process of gathering evidence to support your claim.  This will include taking statements from anyone who saw what happened and having you assessed by one or more medical experts who can verify the nature and effect of your injuries, the impact that they have had and will continue to have on your life, any home or vehicle adaptions that are required and any ongoing treatment and rehabilitation therapies that you will need.

Once we have built a strong case, we will contact the person to blame and ask them to admit responsibility.  Where they do this, we will then begin negotiations to agree an appropriate settlement amount.  We will also ask them to pay for any treatment or rehabilitation that you require and to make an upfront payment (known as an interim payment) to help tide you over financially while you wait for your claim to be settled.

Where responsibility is initially denied, we will push hard to encourage it to be admitted and where all else fails we will take the matter to court in order to have responsibility formally determined by a judge, whose decision will be binding.

Depending on how complex your claim is, the process of obtaining compensation can take anything from six months to several years.

Compensation amount

There is no fixed tariff for burn injury compensation claims and therefore the amount of compensation that you receive will depend on a variety of factors, including how seriously you have been injured, whether you will be left permanently disabled, how likely it is that you will be able to return to work, whether you will need home or vehicle adaptions or any sort of mobility aids, and whether you will require further treatment, rehabilitation or nursing care. 

Compensation amounts can vary from a few thousand pounds to over £100,000 in more serious cases.

For further information on how personal injury compensation is calculated, please read our compensation guide: How is Personal Injury Compensation Calculated? – Step Legal Solicitors

Time limits

In most cases, you will only have three years from the date of the accident or incident in which you were hurt in order to bring a compensation claim.  However, there are exceptions which mean that a shorter or longer time limit may apply.  For example:

• If you are claiming on behalf of a child, then a claim can be brought at any point until they turn 21;
• If you are claiming as a result of an acid attack, then you must usually claim within two years under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme;
• If you are claiming for a burn caused by a faulty product, then you may have up to ten years in which to make a claim; and
• If you are claiming on behalf of someone who lacks mental capacity, then no time limit will apply unless and until mental capacity is recovered – at which point the usual three year limitation period will be triggered.

Contact us

To find out more about bringing a burn compensation claim, please contact Abid Hussain, Anna Rushton or Dominic Jones in our serious injury team on 0800 1956412.  If you are polish and wish to contact us with the help of our free in-house Polish translator, then please contact Agnieszka Kulas on 01270 254064.