A burn injury case is usually brought against a business entity, rather than a person. Responsibility can belong to a landlord, a property management company, a manufacturer or retailer, a general contractor, a utility, a restaurant, or any other business that controlled the building, the product, or the equipment that burned you.

A business will typically have a large commercial insurance carrier with experienced defense teams behind them, which makes choosing the right attorney the most important decision you’ll make after your injury.

Freeman Law Firm, Inc. has been fighting big insurance carriers and their defense teams for more than twenty years and has the experience you need to recover the compensation you deserve. Take advantage of a free, no-obligation consultation by calling our Olympia office at (360) 338-6886. If we take your case, you won't pay anything unless we recover compensation.

Do I Have a Burn Injury Case?

You have a case when someone else's carelessness caused your burn and left you with losses that can be counted. Washington negligence law breaks that down into four elements, and a burn case needs all four.

The Four Elements of Negligence in\ a Burn Injury Case

Duty of care: a property owner has to keep the premises reasonably safe, a manufacturer has to design and label a product so it does not burn a person using it normally, and a contractor has to run a job site without exposing other workers to fire or chemical hazards.
Breach: the responsible party failed to meet that duty, like a landlord who ignored repeated reports of sparking outlets, or a business that kept using a fryer with a broken safety latch.
Causation: the failure is what produced your burn, which in burn cases means proving what ignited, spilled, or overheated, and tying it back to the party who allowed it.
Damages: the burn produced measurable losses, like burn center bills, surgeries, missed paychecks, reduced earning capacity, and permanent scarring.

Parties Who Can Be Held Responsible for a Burn Injury

Responsibility depends on where you were burned and what caused it.

Property owners and landlords, for burns traced to faulty wiring, dead or missing smoke alarms, scalding tap water, unsafe heating equipment, or exits blocked during a fire.
Manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, for products that overheat, ignite, leak chemicals, or carry warnings too weak for the danger. RCW 7.72.030 covers a manufacturer whose design was not reasonably safe or whose warnings were inadequate at the time of manufacture, and RCW 7.72.040 reaches a distributor or retailer that was negligent, broke an express warranty, or sold the product under its own brand name.
General contractors and subcontractors, for arc flashes, chemical exposure, and job site fires caused by a company other than your employer.
Businesses that handle heat or chemicals, for scalding liquids, unguarded equipment, and spills left in place.
Drivers, for vehicle fires and burns that follow a crash.

Responsibility isn’t always obvious from what happened, and it can be more than one party. For example, a fire in a rental unit can lead back to both the landlord and to the manufacturer of the appliance that started it, with separate insurance coverage behind each. Freeman Law Firm, Inc. investigates the cause before deciding who to pursue, which keeps every available source of recovery open to you to maximize the compensation you ultimately receive.

Steps That Can Protect Your Burn Injury Case

Each step below takes minutes and creates a record that still exists months later, after repairs are done and memories have faded. When possible, do the following:

Get burn-specific medical care and keep going back. The American Burn Association recommends referral to a burn center for full-thickness burns, partial-thickness burns covering 10 percent or more of total body surface area, burns on the face, hands, feet, genitalia, or joints, and all chemical and electrical injuries, and continuous treatment records show how the burn progressed from the day it happened.
Photograph the burn more than once. A burn at week one looks different from the same burn at week eight, and a series of photographs shows how it healed and what it left behind.
Preserve whatever caused the burn. When it is something you own, keep it as it is and do not return it, repair it, or throw it away. When it is on property or equipment you do not control, write down what it was and where it happened, then tell your attorney so a preservation demand goes out in writing before repairs or cleanup.
Photograph the scene before repairs or cleanup. Get the wiring, the equipment, the spill, the missing smoke alarm, and the room as a whole.
Write down who was there. Names and phone numbers for witnesses, coworkers, neighbors, and anyone who helped you.
Report what happened in writing. Email your landlord, employer, or the business so a dated record exists outside your memory.
Be careful with the first call from another party's insurance company. Giving your name, saying that you were hurt and are being treated, and ending the call there keeps the record accurate, and a recorded statement can wait until you have talked with an attorney.

About Recovering Compensation

Recovery in a burn case covers what the injury has cost you so far and what it may keep costing you in the future.

Medical Costs and Lost Income

Economic losses are the ones with records and receipts behind them:

Emergency transport, burn center admission, and surgery
Debridement, skin grafts, and staged reconstructive procedures
Dressings, compression garments, and wound care supplies
Physical and occupational therapy for contractures and range of motion
Scar revision and laser treatment
Prescriptions, including medication for pain and itching
Home health care and help with daily tasks during recovery
Wages lost during treatment and recovery
Reduced earning capacity where scarring, grafts, or nerve damage limit the work you can return to

Scarring, Pain, and Other Noneconomic Losses

Noneconomic losses usually aren’t tied to specific invoices, but Washington law allows recovery for them alongside the medical bills.

Freeman Law Firm, Inc. proves losses like that with opinions from your treating physicians on what is permanent, photographs taken across the months of treatment, and testimony from family and coworkers who can describe what changed for you after the burn. Scarring shows in the photographs, and the pain, the lost function, and the change in your daily life come through the medical records and the people around you.

Scarring and Disfigurement

Permanent scarring affects a person most where the burn is on the face, neck, or hands, because the scar is visible in every interaction and the skin over a joint tightens as it heals.

Ongoing Pain

Pain after a burn comes in more than one form:

Acute pain during dressing changes, therapy, and procedures
Ongoing pain from healing and tightening skin
Chronic pain that lasts six months or longer after the burn has healed
Neuropathic pain that feels like shooting, burning, pins and needles, or stabbing as damaged nerves regenerate

Changes in Burned and Grafted Skin

Skin that has been burned or grafted no longer works the way it did:

Reduced ability to shed heat, and no sweating where the sweat glands were destroyed
Nerve pain and cracked skin brought on by cold
Sun sensitivity in scars that have not matured
Lost range of motion where contracture limits a joint

Emotional and Psychological Harm

Anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress after a serious burn are recoverable, including the cost of counseling or psychiatric care and the effect the injury has on your work and your relationships.

Wrongful Death After a Fatal Burn

Where a fire or burn injury causes death, RCW 4.20.010 allows the personal representative of the estate to bring a wrongful death case against the party responsible.

Insurance Company Arguments in Burn Injury Cases

In burn cases insurance carriers generally rely on several tactics to minimize payouts.

Offers Made Before the Scarring Settles

Scarring peaks around six months and can keep changing through 12 to 18 months. An offer made during that period prices an injury that is still forming. Freeman Law Firm, Inc. waits for your treating physicians to describe the permanent result.

Future Surgery Treated as Speculative

Adjusters may try to discount reconstructive procedures that are planned but not yet performed. We answer with written surgical plans and cost projections from the physicians treating you. In larger cases we retain a life care planner to price the surgeries, supplies, therapy, and in-home help you will need over a lifetime.

Blaming You

Arguments that you stood too close, used the product incorrectly, ignored a warning, or did not follow care instructions are meant to cut your recovery through Washington's comparative fault rule. We answer them with the warning label as it was printed, the maintenance and repair history of the equipment, and your treatment records. Where the cause of the burn is still disputed, an engineer or a fire origin and cause investigator can examine what failed and explain why.

Delay Used as a Tactic

Unanswered calls and postponed decisions cost an insurance company nothing. Bringing a lawsuit places the case on a court schedule the other side does not control, and we bring one when negotiation stops producing results.

Key Washington Laws That Apply to Burn Injury Cases

Three areas of key areas in Washington law that affect most burn cases: what duty was owed to you, where you were hurt, how long you have to bring a lawsuit, and what happens if the other side argues you share the blame.

Premises Liability

Responsibility for a burn on someone else's property depends on why you were there. Customers, tenants, and workers invited onto a property are owed the highest duty. Washington follows Restatement (Second) of Torts § 343, adopted in Tincani v. Inland Empire Zoological Society, 124 Wn.2d 121 (1994), which holds a property owner liable for harm to a person invited onto the property when the owner knows about a dangerous condition or would find it through reasonable care, should realize it presents an unreasonable risk of harm, should expect that the person will not discover it or protect themselves from it, and fails to use reasonable care to protect them.

Conditions that produce burns in rental housing and commercial buildings:

Overloaded or deteriorated wiring, outlets, and panels
Smoke detection devices that are missing, disconnected, or dead
Water heaters set high enough to scald
Unguarded heating equipment, fryers, and industrial machinery
Exits that are blocked or locked during a fire

Washington landlords carry duties written into statute. RCW 59.18.060 requires a landlord to keep the property fit for human habitation and to maintain electrical, heating, and other supplied facilities and appliances in reasonably good working order. RCW 43.44.110 puts installation of smoke detection devices on the owner and requires the owner to confirm the device is operational before a new tenant occupies the unit.

Washington's Three-Year Deadline for Burn Injury Lawsuits

Washington’s statute of limitations for personal injury gives you three years from the date of the burn to bring a personal injury lawsuit in Washington, set by RCW 4.16.080(2) for an injury to the person.

Two situations change that timeline:

A person who was under 18, incompetent, or disabled at the time of the burn does not have the three years run against them during that period, per RCW 4.16.190.
A case against a city, county, school district, or other local government entity requires presenting a tort claim to the entity's agent first, and a lawsuit cannot start until 60 calendar days have passed, with the limitation period paused during those 60 days, per RCW 4.96.020.

Shared Fault Under Washington's Comparative Negligence Rule

Being partly at fault for your own burn does not end your case. Washington’s contributory fault rule under RCW 4.22.005 reduces compensation in proportion to your share of the fault and does not bar recovery, so a person found 20 percent at fault on a $500,000 award recovers $400,000. Washington applies that rule without a cutoff percentage, so recovery remains available even where the responsible party argues your share was substantial.

All three rules operate at once in a single case. A burn in a rental unit can come down to the landlord's repair history, the date the burn happened, and the share of blame a jury assigns to each side, which is why the condition of the property and the timeline get documented before either side argues about fault.

Working With Freeman Law Firm and the Burn Injury Case Process

Free consultation and case review. We go through how the burn happened, who was present, what treatment you have had, and whether a case exists.
Investigation and evidence preservation. We send preservation letters to the property owner, manufacturer, employer, or contractor, inspect the scene while the condition is still there, and take custody of the product or equipment where it can be secured.
Medical records and treating physicians. We collect burn center records, operative reports, photographs, and imaging, and we talk with your physicians about the treatment still ahead of you.
Expert workup. Depending on what caused the burn: a fire origin and cause investigator, an electrical or product engineer, a burn surgeon, a life care planner for future treatment costs, and an economist for lost earning capacity.
Demand package. Once your condition is stable enough to project forward, we present a documented demand to the insurance company, supported by records, photographs, expert opinions, and cost projections.
Negotiation. Cases that resolve without a lawsuit resolve at this stage, and you decide whether to accept an offer.
Lawsuit and discovery. Where negotiation stalls, we bring suit and take depositions of the property owner, corporate representatives, and defense experts.
Mediation. A neutral third party works with both sides toward settlement after both sides have seen the evidence developed in discovery.
Trial. If the settlement offer still does not reflect the harm done, our trial lawyers will try the case in front of a jury.
Closing. This is the final phase of the claims process. Here, the focus is on the completion of settlement documents, collection of funds, and their disbursement. At Freeman Law Firm, Inc., we ensure a smooth and transparent process to finalize your claim.

You work with the same attorneys from the first consultation through resolution, and we deal with the insurance company and the expert work so your time can go to treatment and recovery. When your case is finished, Freeman Law Firm, Inc. donates 1 percent of our attorney fees to a charity you choose.

Olympia Burn Injury Questions and Answers

Cost of Hiring an Olympia Burn Injury Attorney

Nothing upfront. Freeman Law Firm, Inc. handles burn injury cases on contingency, so the attorney fee is a percentage of the recovery and there is no fee if there is no recovery. The consultation is free. Ask any office you speak with whether it advances case costs like expert fees, and how those costs are handled if the case does not succeed. Generally, you will receive far more compensation from your case with an experienced attorney, even after attorney fees.

Time a Burn Injury Case Takes to Resolve

Timing depends on how the injury heals. Burn scarring peaks around six months and can keep changing through 12 to 18 months, so a case settled before the scarring matures prices an injury that is still forming. A case resolved in negotiation can take several months to a year after treatment stabilizes, and a case tried in Thurston County Superior Court takes longer.

Burn Degrees and Their Effect on a Case

Burns are classified by depth. Superficial burns, formerly called first-degree, affect only the outer layer of skin. Partial-thickness burns, formerly second-degree, reach the layer underneath and blister. Full-thickness burns, formerly third-degree, destroy the deep layers of skin and can leave the area numb from nerve damage. Depth, total body surface area, and location drive both the treatment required and the compensation available.

Burns That Seem Too Minor for a Case

Depth and location decide more than size. A partial-thickness burn on the hand or face can leave permanent scarring, restricted motion, and nerve pain, and pain severity does not track the size of the burn. A burn that needed treatment beyond first aid, left a visible scar, or still causes pain or sensitivity is one an attorney can review.

Burns at Work and the Right to Sue a Third Party

Workers' compensation through L&I covers medical treatment and partial wage replacement, and it bars a lawsuit against your employer in all but narrow circumstances, including where RCW 51.24.020 applies because the employer acted with deliberate intention to cause the injury. RCW 51.24.030 allows an injured worker to seek damages from a third party who is not in the same employ, which on a job site can mean a general contractor, another subcontractor, a property owner, or an equipment manufacturer. L&I has a financial interest in any third-party recovery and has to be notified.

Burns Caused by an Apartment or Rental Fire

A landlord can be held responsible when the fire started from a condition the landlord was required to maintain. RCW 59.18.060 requires keeping electrical, heating, and supplied appliances in reasonably good working order, and RCW 43.44.110 places installation of smoke detection devices on the owner. Responsibility can also reach an electrician, a property management company, or the maker of an appliance that failed.

Bringing a Case Against a Landlord You Still Rent From

Rental property carries liability coverage for injuries on the premises, and in most cases the insurance company pays the settlement or judgment and provides the defense. RCW 59.18.240 also prohibits a landlord from evicting you, raising your rent, or reducing services because you asserted your rights under the Residential Landlord-Tenant Act, which covers reporting an unsafe condition.

Partial Fault for Your Own Burn

You can still recover. RCW 4.22.005 reduces damages in proportion to your share of the fault and does not bar recovery, so a person 30 percent at fault recovers 70 percent of the damages awarded. A fault percentage is negotiated in settlement and decided by the jury at trial, which makes it an argument to answer with evidence rather than a reason to hold back from bringing a case.

Court Appearances and Whether Your Case Reaches Trial

Trial is the last stage, and negotiation, a lawsuit, depositions, and mediation all come before it. Your attorney handles the court work, the hearings, and the expert workup. Where a case does reach trial, your part is testifying about how the burn happened and how it changed your daily life and your work.

Options if the At-Fault Party Has No Insurance

Other coverage usually exists. A business or commercial building usually carries general liability insurance separate from the owner's personal policy, a manufacturer carries product liability coverage, a contractor on a job site carries its own, and RCW 48.22.030 underinsured motorist coverage on your own auto policy can apply to burns from a crash caused by a driver with no coverage or not enough. Identifying every available policy is part of the investigation.

Deadline to Bring a Burn Injury Lawsuit in Washington

Three years from the date of injury, set by RCW 4.16.080(2). The three years do not run while the injured person is under 18, incompetent, or disabled, per RCW 4.16.190. A case against a city, county, or other local government entity requires presenting a tort claim to the entity's agent and waiting 60 calendar days before suit, with the deadline paused during that period, per RCW 4.96.020.

Let Freeman Fight for Your Future

A serious burn leaves questions that are hard to answer on your own, like whether the property owner or company can be held responsible or what your treatment will cost by the time it is finished. You may also have an offer from an insurance company and wonder if it is reasonable. The burn injury lawyers at Freeman Law Firm, Inc. can answer all your questions in a free consultation, and you are under no obligation afterward.

If you hire us, we take over the investigation, the expert work, and every conversation with the insurance company, and our fee comes out of the recovery, so there is nothing to pay while your case is pending. Call our Olympia office at (360) 338-6886 or send us a message, and we will tell you whether you have a case and what it would take to pursue it.

Olympia Burn Injury Attorneys