Each year in the United States, thousands of dangerous consumer products are recalled by federal safety agencies like the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for posing fire and burn hazards to consumers.
Too often, dangerous products are recalled only after victims report injuries or after legal action has been imposed on the companies responsible for releasing the dangerous and defective products.
Commonly recalled and defective products that can lead to accidents and burn injuries include space heaters, pressure cookers, recreational vehicles, e-cigs, lithium battery packs, guns, cooking sprays and automobile components.
Following a burn injury where you suspect there was negligence or a product defect, contact an experienced catastrophic injury and product liability lawyer.
Consumer Fire & Burn Hazards
Understanding the pathophysiology of a burn is important for offering quality and effective legal counsel. Different causes lead to different burn patterns that can be critical for understanding how the event occurred and presenting the evidence in a compelling and persuasive manner.
Often in workplace explosion accidents and burn injury lawsuits, the burn victim is deceased or disabled and not able to describe precisely how the event occurred. Therefore, the pathophysiology of a burn injury may be critical evidence in the case, and all burn injuries should be documented with photographs immediately and as the burn is treated.
A variety of defective products can pose a fire and burn hazard to American consumers, including the following:
Joe Lyon has experience developing evidence in burn injury cases through the use of design engineers and medical professionals to present quality arguments on the plaintiff’s behalf. This work has resulted in significant settlements to recover medical costs, lost wages and pain and suffering.
Common Types of Burn Injury
Burns may range from minor issues to life-threatening emergencies. Many people die each year from defective product-related burn injuries. Treatment of burns depends on body location and severity of the injury.
Deep or widespread burns require immediate medical attention. A basic classification of burn injuries looks like the following:
- First-degree burn—a minor burn affects the epidermis, or the outer layer of the skin. It may cause redness, swelling and pain. It usually heals with basic first-aid measures.
- Second-degree burn—affects both the epidermis and the second layer of skin, the dermis. It may cause red and white skin, pain, and swelling. Blisters may develop, and pain can be severe. Scarring is likely.
- Third-degree burn—reaches into the fat layer beneath the skin. Third-degree burns can destroy nerves, causing numbness.
Dangerous consumer products can pose fire hazards that can cause different types of burn injuries, including:
- Thermal burns—caused by contact with flames, steam, or hot liquids. Thermal burns often result from household kitchen accidents involving pressure cookers or other defective appliances.
- Flash burns—caused by explosions of natural gas, propane, gasoline and other flammable liquids. These burns can be caused by cooking sprays or defective recreational vehicles (ATVs).
- Flame burns—caused by exposure to prolonged and intense heat, flammable liquids, automobile accidents, stoves, batteries and space heaters.
- Scald burns—caused by hot liquids. Water, oil, grease and other hot liquids can cause serious burn injuries. Defective pressure cookers can lead to this type of injury.
- Contact burns—caused by touching hot metals, plastics, glass or coals. These can be very deep and may result from auto defects, batteries or defective e-cig devices.
- Chemical burns—sources of these burns are from acids in household products like bleach, ammonia, and other household cleaners (toilet bowl cleaner, swimming pool chemicals, oven cleaners).
Burn Hazards Lawsuits
A serious burn injury may leave permanent disfigurement and scarring, and the matter of compensation should be discussed with a lawyer qualified in complex personal injury claims.
The legal recourses from an accident will depend on the specific circumstances, and what kind of defective product caused the burn injury. In addition to punitive damages filed against a negligent manufacturer, a victim may deserve compensation for pain and suffering, past and future medical costs, lost past and future earnings, and a loss of quality of life.
Compensation for burn injuries involve most of the same damages that encompass other personal injury cases. But since burn injuries can be extraordinarily painful and can lead to severe disfigurement, a liable defendant must compensate a plaintiff for physical pain the burn causes, and also the intense emotional pain a disfigured burn victim suffers with embarrassment, depression, or post-traumatic stress reactions likely caused by an accident and injury.
Litigation involving burn injuries often arises from more complex causes based in product liability or employer negligence. The origin of the cause of the injury will almost always requires forensic review.
