Getting burned at work can be a traumatic experience. Burns can lead to pain, medical bills, trauma, even disability, and loss of income. In this traumatic time, you will also need to think about compensation for what happened. There are many options available to you for getting compensated for your loss.
Burns in the workplace can be caused by:
- Chemicals. Some chemicals used at places of work can burn your skin, even through protective clothing. These can range from minor burns to severe burns. Typically these burns occur in factories where caustic chemicals are used.
- Electricity. You can suffer burns from an electrical shock. These are typically caused by touching exposed live wiring.
- Heat. These thermal burns occur when you come into contact with a hot substance. This could be a very hot item, liquid or gas. Typically these burns are caused by something like an open fire, hot stove, molten metal, boiling water, or steam.
Workers’ Compensation
This is probably your first and best option. You might have more options together with a workers’ compensation claim. We will look at more options after this one.
Your employer has workers’ compensation insurance exactly for cases like these. You can claim any direct expenses like medical bills, rehabilitation therapy, and a portion of your lost income.
For a successful claim, you just need to prove that you were injured at work or performing work duties. You could be burned at work or at a customer in the line of performing your work and the claim should be successful. This is a relatively simple claim procedure compared to a lawsuit.
Suing a Third Party
You could also have a claim against a third party. Suing a third party can be complicated, time-consuming, costly and you need to prove losses as well as the root cause of the burns. You are best to get an experienced law firm like the Callahan Law Firm to help with a lawsuit. Investigating and making a successful case is critical when a third party is involved.
In a lawsuit against a third party, you can claim more than what would be covered through worker’s compensation. You could sue for full loss of income, physical and mental trauma, inability to work, disability. You will just have to prove that you suffered a quantifiable loss directly through the actions or inactions of the third party.
Third parties could include:
- Manufacturer of a faulty item. If there was a defect or design flaw in an item that caused your burns, you could have a case. You could sue the manufacturer of the item. In this case, you will need to prove that there was a design or manufacturing flaw that directly led to your burns.
- The driver of a vehicle that caused an accident and your burns. If you were in an accident and received burns, you could sue the other driver if they caused the accident. You would need to prove that something the other driver did, or did not do, caused the accident that in turn caused your burns.
- A negligent contractor or sub-contractor. If a contractor or subcontractor was the cause of your burns, you could sue them. You would need to prove that they directly were responsible for the situation that caused your burns. A contractor as an example could have performed maintenance and was negligent, This might have caused your burns. You will need to prove this negligence though.
- An employee of a client that caused the burns. If you were working at a clients’ premises and one of their employees caused your burns, you could have a legal case against that employee. Again, you will need to prove that their actions, or inactions, directly led to you being burned.
Suing Your Employer
This is probably not an option if you get burned at work. Your employer would need to have been grossly negligent for you to even consider a lawsuit. You should get a legal opinion, but this option is usually not the way to go. Don’t despair though, you have the other options already mentioned above that you should pursue
Always get medical attention if you have suffered a burn. If the burns happened at your place of work or as part of your work you can claim worker’s compensation. If a third party (not your employer or a fellow employee) was the root cause of your burns, you could have an additional case against them. Make sure to get an experienced lawyer to handle a third-party lawsuit.
