Burn Accidents

California Burn Injury & Catastrophic Injury Attorneys

Injured by a burn? Here is what to know.

• Yaghmai Law Firm represents burn injury victims and families in Los Angeles, Sherman Oaks, and the San Fernando Valley.
• We handle burns from vehicle fires, scalds and hot liquids, electrical contact, chemical exposure, building and apartment fires, gas explosions, and defective products.
• California gives you two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury claim under CCP Section 335.1. Public-entity fires (city, county, transit) require a government claim within six months.
• No fees unless we recover compensation. Free case review.
• Call or text (888) 800-6731 or submit your case online.

A burn injury lawyer brings together burn-center specialists, electrical engineers, and product experts to prove how a serious burn happened and who is responsible. Burn injuries are among the most painful and disfiguring traumas a person can survive. A serious burn can require months of acute care, multiple skin grafts and reconstructive surgeries, lifelong scar management, and ongoing treatment for nerve damage, infection risk, and post-traumatic stress. Even a partial-thickness burn over a small area of the body can keep a worker off the job for weeks and leave permanent scarring. A full-thickness or fourth-degree burn over a larger area is catastrophic and frequently fatal.

Yaghmai Law Firm represents burn survivors and the families of victims throughout Los Angeles and California. We handle vehicle fires after car crashes, tanker truck and big-rig fuel fires, apartment and hotel fires caused by negligent landlords, industrial and workplace explosions, electrical contact injuries, scalds from defective water heaters and restaurant equipment, and chemical burns from caustic substances and defective consumer products. Our goal is full recovery for medical bills, lost income, scarring and disfigurement, future care, and pain and suffering. We work on contingency — you pay nothing unless we recover.

If you or a loved one suffered a serious burn injury, we are ready to help.

No Win, No Fee — You Pay Nothing Unless We Recover

Burn injury cases are expensive to investigate. They often require fire-origin and cause investigators, electrical and mechanical engineers, burn-care physicians and life-care planners, and forensic accountants to project a lifetime of medical treatment and lost earning capacity. Insurers know that the medical specials alone — a single skin graft surgery can exceed $50,000, and a stay in a regional burn center can run into seven figures — will force a meaningful settlement if the case is proven.

Yaghmai Law Firm advances those costs and represents burn injury clients on a contingency-fee basis. There is no retainer, no hourly fee, and no out-of-pocket cost to you. We are paid only if we recover money for you, as a percentage of the settlement or verdict. If we do not recover, you owe us nothing for our work. The fee is disclosed in writing at the outset, and we walk you through every dollar before you sign.

Types of Burn Injury Cases We Handle

The American Burn Association recognizes six major mechanisms of burn injury. We handle all of them.

• Thermal burns — the most common category. Open flame, hot surfaces, steam, and post-collision vehicle fires. Includes residential and apartment fires caused by faulty wiring, unsafe space heaters, smoke-alarm and sprinkler failures, and landlord neglect.
• Scald burns — hot liquids and steam. Defective water heaters set above safe limits, restaurant fryers and coffee machines, ruptured radiator hoses, and industrial steam-line failures. Children and elderly tenants are especially vulnerable.
• Electrical burns — high-voltage contact, downed power lines, faulty wiring, arc-flash incidents at construction sites and industrial facilities. Electrical burns can cause deep tissue damage that is not visible on the skin's surface, plus cardiac arrhythmias and neurological injury.
• Chemical burns — acids, alkalis, solvents, and industrial cleaners. Includes hydrofluoric acid and lye exposures, defective drain cleaners and pool chemicals, and unlabeled hazardous shipments.
• Radiation and friction burns — less common in civil cases, but we handle them when a defective product or unsafe procedure is responsible (for example, friction burns from defective treadmills or radiation overexposure from a malfunctioning device).
• Inhalation injuries — smoke and toxic-fume inhalation often accompany thermal burns and can be more dangerous than the surface burn itself.

Burns are also classified by depth: first-degree (superficial, like a sunburn), second-degree (partial-thickness, blistering), third-degree (full-thickness, destroying skin and nerve endings), and fourth-degree (extending into muscle, tendon, and bone). Anything beyond a small first-degree burn can have permanent consequences, and second-degree burns over more than 10% of the body in adults are considered major burns by national guidelines.

Common Causes of Burn Injury Claims

Most of the burn injury claims we see fall into a handful of recurring fact patterns:

• Vehicle fires after collisions — ruptured fuel tanks, post-crash electrical fires, and lithium-ion battery thermal runaways in electric and hybrid vehicles. Often layered on top of a car accident or truck accident claim.
• Tanker truck and tow-truck fuel fires — gasoline tankers, diesel rigs, and propane carriers involved in highway collisions. The combustible-cargo factor multiplies the harm and brings federal motor carrier safety rules into play.
• Apartment, condo, and hotel fires — landlord negligence is the most common cause: missing or disabled smoke alarms, non-functioning sprinklers, blocked fire exits, illegal SROs, overloaded electrical service, defective HVAC equipment, and code violations the property manager knew about and ignored.
• Workplace and construction fires and explosions — refinery and chemical plant incidents, oil-field accidents, welding and hot-work fires, confined-space ignitions, and arc-flash events. These cases often layer workers' compensation with third-party liability against equipment manufacturers, general contractors, and premises owners.
• Defective product fires — lithium-ion batteries in e-bikes, scooters, phones, and power tools; defective space heaters, electric blankets, and appliances; flammable children's sleepwear and clothing; defective lighters and fuel containers; pressurized canisters that explode under normal use.
• Gas leaks and explosions — utility company line failures, negligent excavation that strikes a gas main, defective gas meters and regulators, and improperly installed appliances. These cases can involve SoCalGas, contractors, and equipment manufacturers.
• Scalding from defective water heaters and restaurant equipment — thermostat failures, missing anti-scald valves in landlord-controlled water systems, and unsafe restaurant cooking equipment.
• Chemical and electrical injuries on public roads — downed power lines, electrified standing water, and unlabeled chemical spills that injure responders, motorists, and pedestrians. When fatal, these become wrongful death claims.

Burn Injury Symptoms and Long-Term Complications

The visible burn is often only the first chapter of a survivor's recovery. Long-term symptoms and complications that drive the value of a burn case include:

• Severe and chronic pain during the acute phase and continuing through years of reconstruction and scar maturation.
• Permanent scarring, disfigurement, and contractures that limit range of motion and can require repeated surgical release.
• Skin grafts and reconstructive surgery — autografts, allografts, and cultured-skin procedures, sometimes over many years.
• Infection and sepsis risk, the leading non-burn cause of death in burn-center patients.
• Nerve damage and neuropathic pain, particularly with deep partial-thickness and full-thickness burns.
• Smoke inhalation injury: airway burns, carbon monoxide and cyanide toxicity, and long-term respiratory disease.
• Brain injury from anoxia, carbon monoxide poisoning, or collateral head trauma. We frequently coordinate burn and traumatic brain injury claims together.
• Amputations after deep electrical or fourth-degree thermal burns.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders, which the burn-care literature treats as routine, not exceptional.
• Loss of independence, identity, and earning capacity — the social and vocational consequences of visible scarring and physical limitation.

What Is a California Burn Injury Case Worth?

There is no formula. Burn case value is driven by the specifics: the depth and percentage of body surface burned, the location of the burns (face, hands, and genitalia are weighted heavily because of functional and cosmetic impact), the survivor's age and occupation, the strength of liability, the available insurance, and the credibility of the defendant's conduct. The categories of compensation in a typical California burn claim include:

• Past and future medical expenses — emergency care, burn-center admissions, surgeries and grafts, reconstructive procedures, rehabilitation, prosthetics, scar revision, and lifetime follow-up. Pediatric burn survivors often need staged reconstructions for years as they grow.
• Past and future lost income and loss of earning capacity — especially significant when scarring or amputation forces a career change.
• Pain, suffering, and emotional distress, including chronic pain, PTSD, anxiety, and depression.
• Disfigurement and loss of enjoyment of life — California permits separate recovery for the social and personal consequences of visible scarring.
• Loss of consortium for the survivor's spouse.
• Wrongful death damages if the burn injury was fatal — surviving spouse, children, and dependent heirs can recover under CCP Section 377.60.
• Punitive damages when the defendant's conduct shows oppression, fraud, or malice — common in defective-product and landlord-neglect fire cases.

We do not value cases by online calculator. We build the value from medical specials, life-care projections, vocational analyses, and the strength of the liability case, and we test it against jury verdict research and our own experience with insurance carriers and corporate defendants.

California Burn Injury Law — Deadlines and Doctrines

A few California rules drive burn-injury litigation. Miss any of them and the case can be lost on procedure regardless of how strong the underlying facts are.

• Two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims under CCP Section 335.1. The clock generally starts on the date of the burn. If the survivor dies of the injury, the wrongful death clock is also two years from the date of death.
• Six-month government claim deadline under Government Code Section 911.2 for any claim against a city, county, transit district, state agency, or other public entity — for example, a Metro bus fire, a downed city-owned power line, or a fire at a city-managed property. This deadline is shorter than most clients realize and is non-negotiable.
• Pure comparative fault under Li v. Yellow Cab Co., 13 Cal.3d 804 (1975). Even if the burn victim is partially at fault, recovery is reduced by the assigned percentage but is not barred. There is no minimum threshold to clear.
• Strict products liability under Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, 59 Cal.2d 57 (1963) and its successors. A manufacturer, distributor, or retailer that puts a defective product into the stream of commerce is strictly liable for resulting injuries — central in defective-battery, defective-water-heater, defective-vehicle, and defective-appliance fire cases.
• Landlord duty of care under California Civil Code Section 1941 and 1714, and case law including Becker v. IRM Corp., 38 Cal.3d 454 (1985). Landlords must maintain working smoke alarms, comply with fire code, and address known fire hazards.
• Joint and several liability for economic damages under Proposition 51 / Civil Code Section 1431.2, with several liability only for non-economic damages allocated by comparative fault.

Procedural traps in burn cases are real. Identifying every responsible party (manufacturer, landlord, contractor, utility, public entity) early and giving timely notice is often the difference between a full recovery and a barred claim.

Talk to a Los Angeles burn injury lawyer today. No fees unless we win.

Why Choose Yaghmai Law Firm for Your Burn Injury Case

Burn cases are a specialized corner of personal injury practice. They demand fire investigators who can preserve and reconstruct the scene before evidence is destroyed; medical experts who understand burn-center treatment protocols and the long arc of reconstructive care; life-care planners who can quantify decades of future treatment; and trial lawyers who know how to translate medical and engineering proof into a story a jury will credit. We take a small caseload by design so we can do that work properly.

We represent burn survivors and surviving families across Los Angeles, Sherman Oaks, the San Fernando Valley, and California. We meet with you by phone, text, video, or in person at a location that works for you — including hospital rooms, burn centers, and rehabilitation facilities. We communicate in English, French, and Persian, and arrange interpreters in Spanish and other languages as needed.

“Most burn cases I take involve a product, a building, or a vehicle – not just a careless person. The real fight is decades of future care: skin reconstruction, infection management, occupational therapy. I want a lifecare plan in the record before we have a single conversation about a number.”

— Houtan Yaghmai, Esq., President & Managing Attorney

Frequently Asked Questions

How long do I have to file a burn injury lawsuit in California?

Two years from the date of the injury under CCP Section 335.1 in most cases. If the defendant is a public entity (a city, county, transit agency, or state agency), you must first file an administrative government claim within six months under Government Code Section 911.2. Missing the government-claim deadline can extinguish the case entirely, so act quickly.

What if the burn injury was partly my fault?

California follows pure comparative fault. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, but you can still recover even if you are found mostly at fault. Defendants and their insurers routinely overstate the plaintiff's share, which is why an experienced trial lawyer matters from the start.

Who can be sued in a burn injury case?

It depends on the cause. Possible defendants include manufacturers of defective products (batteries, water heaters, appliances, vehicles), landlords and property owners, contractors and subcontractors, utility companies (gas, electric), trucking and rideshare companies, employers and premises owners in workplace cases, and public entities. Most serious burn cases have multiple defendants.

What if my burn injury was a workplace accident?

You may have a workers' compensation claim against your employer and a separate third-party personal injury claim against the manufacturer of defective equipment, a contractor, a property owner, or another non-employer responsible for the fire. The two claims run in parallel. Workers' comp does not require fault but caps benefits; a third-party claim allows full recovery including pain and suffering.

How much does it cost to hire a burn injury lawyer?

Nothing up front. We work on contingency — you pay no fee unless we recover compensation, and we advance the costs of investigation, experts, and litigation. The fee is a percentage of the recovery, disclosed in writing at the outset.

What if my loved one died in a fire or burn accident?

California permits surviving spouses, children, and other dependent heirs to bring a wrongful death claim under CCP Section 377.60, and the deceased's estate can pursue a survival claim for the pain and damages suffered before death. We have a dedicated practice in wrongful death litigation and coordinate the two claims together.

What evidence should I preserve after a burn injury?

Photographs of the burns at every stage of healing, the clothing and personal effects worn at the time (do not wash them), any defective product (in its original condition if possible) and its packaging, fire department and police reports, witness contact information, and complete medical records including burn center admissions and discharge summaries. Tell your lawyer immediately if a utility, contractor, manufacturer, or landlord asks to inspect or take possession of the scene or product.

Do I have to go to court?

Most burn injury cases resolve through settlement, mediation, or arbitration without a trial. We prepare every case as if it will be tried, because that posture produces the best settlement outcomes — and because some cases should be tried. You will never be pressured to settle for less than your case is worth, and you make the final call on every offer.

Related Practice Areas

• Personal Injury — firmwide practice hub.
• Car Accident Lawyer — vehicle fires and post-collision burns.
• Truck Accident Lawyer — tanker and big-rig fuel fires.
• Brain Injury Lawyer — anoxic and inhalation brain injuries that often accompany serious burns.
• Wrongful Death Attorney — fatal fire and burn cases.
• Submit Your Case for Review — free, confidential case evaluation.

Reviewed by Houtan Yaghmai, Esq., President & Managing Attorney. Admitted to practice law in California (State Bar No. 298487). He represents personal injury and immigration clients statewide.

Last updated: May 30, 2026.