According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are over 15,000 thermal burns and 5,000 chemical burns each year that require workers to take days away from work.
For industries dealing with fires, chemicals, or high temperatures, burn injuries are a recognized hazard. These injuries can have a significant impact on the lives of workers, says Phoenix workplace burn injury lawyer Weston S. Montrose. Aside from physical damage, burn injuries also inflict emotional ones.
A workplace burn injury is usually covered by workers’ compensation in nearly every state, so if you’re wondering whether you can sue for a workplace burn injury, filing a workers’ compensation claim is most often the logical first step.
Workers’ compensation does not hand out damages for pain and suffering, nor does it give full wage replacement. It more or less covers medical costs and a piece of lost wages but the amount of what you get is set by state law. Instead of broad compensation like in other court cases, workers’ compensation mostly covers treatment and partial lost earnings.
Let’s examine how workers’ compensation affects how burn injury cases are handled.
What Workers’ Compensation Covers in Burn Injury Cases
Serious burn injuries can be severe and permanent. Some burn injury cases can potentially lead to death, according to the legal website https://sigelmanassociates.com/. A burn injury caused by someone’s negligence can be devastating, but there are options to alleviate your grievances.
Workers’ compensation provides no-fault benefits for any burn injury that occurs out of and in the course of employment, regardless of negligence. In a workers’ compensation claim, the worker need not establish employer fault, which is one reason many injured employees may not need to sue for a workplace burn injury. Benefits include reasonable and necessary surgical and medical treatments. Fees for hospitalization, skin grafts, wound care, physical and occupational therapies, and drugs are also part of the workers’ compensation benefits.
Workers’ compensation can provide wage replacement, most often figured as a percentage of the worker’s average weekly wage, during the stretch when the employee is disabled. If the injury ends up causing permanent impairment, many states add extra compensation using a scheduled benefit for certain body parts or a disability rating system.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration separately handles workplace safety requirements. The organization may investigate the circumstances that led to the burn, which can result in an independent record of violations. An OSHA citation is not itself a reason for damages, but the written outcomes can still count as evidence in a lawsuit brought by someone else.
The Exclusive Remedy Rule and Why It Matters
Workers’ compensation runs on a statutory trade-off: the employer offers no-fault coverage and, in exchange, the employee’s only real recourse against the employer is the workers’ comp system rather than to sue for a workplace burn injury. People often call this principle the exclusive remedy rule, or the exclusivity doctrine. This doctrine shows up in every state’s workers’ compensation framework. Under this doctrine, an injured employee cannot file a negligence lawsuit against the employer and cannot receive pain and suffering damages, regardless of whether the employer’s carelessness directly caused the injury or not.
This is the limitation that most injured workers discover after the fact. A workers’ comp claim for a serious burn injury could cover $50,000 to $100,000 in medical costs and partial wages. Meanwhile, a third-party personal injury lawsuit for that same injury, if it is available, may recover damages for pain, disfigurement, permanent scarring, emotional trauma, and full future earnings losses.
When a Lawsuit Against the Employer Becomes Possible
There is a narrow exception to the exclusive remedy rule if the employer’s conduct goes beyond ordinary negligence and moves into intentional misconduct. The exact legal test is different in each state, but most places require either (1) actual intent to harm the employee or (2) a “substantial certainty” standard, meaning the employer intentionally created a situation, knowing the injury was substantially certain to occur. These standards could apply no matter the employer’s intent.
An exception could be valid if an employer were to instruct employees to operate equipment with a known risk of fire or explosion, remove safety shields to increase productivity, or fail to give relevant instructions or protective apparel for working with flammable substances.
Depending on the jurisdiction of a case, an employer exhibiting gross negligence and intentional misconduct may face a lawsuit from a worker. There are states that do not recognize the intentional tort exception at all, so the exclusive remedy rule still applies no matter how the employer acted.
A separate and more straightforward exception shows up when the employer does not carry workers’ compensation insurance. Employers are usually required by law to provide this coverage, but some forget or fail to do so. When the coverage is missing, an injured worker may be able to sue for a workplace burn injury because the usual statutory shield from lawsuits does not work. Under these circumstances, it is possible for the worker to bring a claim directly, claiming negligence from the employer in the civil courts.
Third-Party Claims: The Path to Full Compensation
Engaging in a lawsuit following the burn injuries suffered at the workplace often involves a party other than the employer. The exclusive remedy rule mainly protects the parties inside the employment relationship and does not extend to outsiders.
Defective Equipment and Product Liability
If a burn injury was a result of a defect in a machine or a faulty mechanical party, the manufacturer or supplier may be held accountable in terms of product liability laws. Such claims require no establishment of negligence. Claims of this kind do not involve an element of fault. Strict liability encompasses most cases where defective goods cause extra damage while being used in their default state. Product liability claims can arise against the entity that designed, manufactured, or sold faulty or defective equipment.
Contractor and Subcontractor Liability
On construction sites and in facilities where multiple companies end up working together, a burn injury that happened after a subcontractor’s negligence or a contractor’s fault can lead to liability for that third party. The injured worker’s employer cannot be sued under exclusivity rules, but the subcontractor whose gear sparked the fire, or the general contractor who did not enforce the site safety protocols properly, may not get the same protection.
Property Owner Liability
If the work is done on property owned by someone other than the employer, and the property condition contributed to the burn, then the property owner might be held responsible. This liability may show up when electrical systems on a leased premises are defective, when a landlord did not reveal a known dangerous condition, or when a building owner failed to keep the sprinkler systems in service.
Running Both Claims Simultaneously and the Subrogation Issue
An employee can pursue workers’ compensation benefits and a third-party lawsuit at the same time. Workers’ comp pays first, and that gives immediate coverage for medical bills and wage replacement while the lawsuit is still pending. Should the lawsuit conclude in fiscal compensation, the employer or the workers’ compensation insurer may seek a refund under the doctrine of subrogation. It allows them to recover a portion of the workers’ compensation benefits they paid from the lawsuit proceeds, subject to state rules. The worker keeps the remaining cash, which extends to recover some of the damages not covered by the workers’ compensation insurance.
This setup prevents the injured worker from being compensated twice for the same medical expenses. The practical upside is that the combined payout, meaning workers’ comp benefits paid during the time the case is going on plus the third-party settlement or verdict after subtracting subrogation, ends up being substantially larger than workers’ comp alone.
What Burn Injuries Cost and Why the Gap Matters
Aside from high financial strain related to severe burns, a burn injury’s costs go far beyond the emergency room. Severe burn care can involve prolonged hospital stays, multiple surgeries, significant skin grafting, and extensive rehabilitation care, as pointed out by the American Burn Association.
Permanent scarring and disfigurement can affect job prospects, emotional balance, and everyday living in ways workers’ compensation schedules do not fully cover. A permanent partial disability rating, computed under a state benefit plan, also fails to measure the real weight of visible disfigurement on someone’s career path or daily routine.
Pain and suffering damages in a burn injury claim involving someone other than the employer are not computed the same way as workers’ comp disability ratings. They look at the actual physical discomfort tied to medical procedures and the recovery process, the emotional weight connected to disfigurement, and the lingering impact on daily life.
These damages are not available for recovery through workers’ comp, no matter how serious the burns appear. When a third party caused the burn or at least heavily contributed to it, pursuing a third-party claim is what makes this type of compensation recoverable.
The First Questions to Ask After a Workplace Burn Injury
The first moves after a workplace burn injury remain the same even if you may be able to sue for a workplace burn injury under certain circumstances. You still need to get immediate medical treatment, report the injury to the employer, and submit the workers’ compensation claim. You should also keep records of what happened, including photos of the location, the related equipment, and the burn itself at different stages during healing. These actions help both the workers’ comp filing and any later lawsuit.
The questions that determine whether a lawsuit is even possible require careful analysis: was there equipment involved that could become defective? Were contractors or subcontractors present at the time? Did the injury occur on someone else’s property? Was the employer’s behavior extreme enough to hit the intentional tort standard in that particular state? Did the employer fail to have workers’ compensation coverage? The OSHA burn injury and fire safety resources, along with the state workers’ compensation board websites, give background on what employers must do and how benefits are structured.
Figuring out whether a third party contributed to the injury is important. If the total payout is limited to the workers’ comp benefit schedule, the injured party may still have the opportunity to seek damages beyond workers’ compensation benefits through third-party claims.
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