Written and reviewed by Josh Kohanim, Esq., California Bar No. 328609 · Reviewed
In this guide
A burn from a building fire, a vehicle fire, an explosion, a chemical exposure, or an electrical contact in Los Angeles County is classified by depth, traced to a cause, and valued by what it took to close the wound. Workers' compensation benefits themselves are a separate subject. The wider framework is on our Los Angeles catastrophic injury lawyer page.
Why the burn degree decides the case
The National Library of Medicine's MedlinePlus page on burns sets out the classification a burn unit uses and a jury will hear. First-degree burns "damage only the outer layer of skin." Second-degree burns damage "the outer layer and the layer underneath." Third-degree burns "damage or destroy the deepest layer of skin and tissues underneath." The same page notes that burns damage the skin's protective barrier, which is why infection is a constant risk, and that serious burns can lead to shock.
| Classification | What is damaged | What it usually means for the claim |
|---|---|---|
| First degree | The outer layer of skin only | Painful, generally heals, an ordinary injury claim |
| Second degree | The outer layer and the layer underneath | Blistering and scarring, sometimes grafting, permanent marks possible |
| Third degree | The deepest layer of skin and the tissue underneath | Grafting, revision surgery, permanent scarring and impairment |
Grafting is where the surgical future comes from. MedlinePlus describes a skin graft as "a patch of skin that is removed by surgery from one area of the body and transplanted, or attached, to another area." A split-thickness graft takes the epidermis and part of the dermis; a full-thickness graft takes the entire thickness of skin and is used for deeper losses and for areas such as the face. Each graft creates a donor site, which is a second wound with its own healing and its own scar.
What causes burn cases in Los Angeles
Burns come from "heat, chemicals, electricity, sunlight, or radiation," and MedlinePlus names the common sources as scalds from hot liquids and steam, building fires, and flammable liquids and gases. The American Burn Association's burn incidence fact sheet puts national scale on it. It cites the CDC's National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey for 398,000 fire or burn-related injuries in 2021 and 252,000 injuries from hot objects or substances, the National Fire Protection Association for 3,800 fire and smoke inhalation deaths, and the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project for 29,165 burn admissions a year in its 2020 data.
Two fact patterns produce most of the claims here. The first is a residential fire in an older apartment building. The second is a workplace burn, electrical or chemical, on a job site or in a commercial kitchen or plant.
Who pays for an apartment fire
A premises case asks whether the person who owned, leased, occupied, or controlled the property used reasonable care to manage it, which is the structure of California jury instruction CACI No. 1000. In a fire the inquiry becomes specific quickly: what started it, what let it spread, and what stopped people from getting out.
- Were the smoke alarms there and working? Health and Safety Code section 13113.7 requires smoke alarms in dwelling units intended for human occupancy, installed per the manufacturer's instructions, and places testing and maintenance on the owner, who must ensure they are operable when a tenancy begins.
- Was the wiring or the appliance the ignition source? That question moves the case toward an electrician, a maintenance company, or a product manufacturer.
- Were exits, stairways, or windows blocked or barred? Escape route conditions turn a survivable fire into a fatal one.
- Had anyone complained before? Prior complaints and work orders are the evidence of notice, and they are in the management company's files rather than yours.
Those records are requested in writing at the start of a case, because buildings get repaired and files get purged. The general rules for these claims are on our Los Angeles premises liability page.
Workplace electrical and chemical burns
An arc flash, a chemical splash, or hot work such as welding near a flammable source produces burns that are severe from the first second. California treats them as serious by statute: Labor Code section 6302 includes "any serious degree of permanent disfigurement" and inpatient hospitalization in the definition that requires an employer to report to Cal/OSHA, the state workplace safety agency.
The workers' compensation system handles the employer. It does not handle the utility, the general contractor, the equipment maker, or the company whose chemical was mislabeled, and those claims proceed separately. Our construction accident page covers how a third-party claim, meaning a claim against someone other than your employer, runs alongside a workers' compensation file.
Getting paid for the scarring
CACI No. 3905A lists the noneconomic items a jury may award, and disfigurement and physical impairment appear alongside physical pain and mental suffering. They are not the same thing. A contracture, scar tissue that tightens and limits motion, across an elbow is impairment; the scarring on a forearm is disfigurement; the flinch when a burned person meets a stranger is neither, and it is still real.
The instruction also tells jurors there is no fixed standard for these damages and that they must use their own judgment. That is why the proof is concrete rather than adjectival: photographs taken across the healing timeline, the operative reports for each revision, the compression garment schedule, and testimony from people who watched the person before and after. We do not describe a burn as horrific. We show what it took to close it.
The economic side is the surgical future. Revision procedures, laser treatment, scar management, and psychological care are priced item by item, and the standard is CACI No. 3903A: care the person is reasonably certain to need. Our guide to life care plans and future medical costs covers how that projection is built.
When the usual rule changes
- The fire started with something you did. California compares fault rather than barring the claim, and a landlord who left a building without working alarms still answers for the difference that made.
- The burn healed without permanent change. A second-degree burn that leaves no scarring is an ordinary injury claim, and building it like a catastrophic one wastes the client's money.
- The product is the defendant. A space heater, a lithium battery, a pressure vessel, or a vehicle fuel system shifts the case to a manufacturing defect, a design defect, or a failure to warn, and those claims depend on preserving the item itself.
- A public housing authority or public utility is involved. Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim inside six months, far shorter than the two years that applies to a private landlord.
What to do during treatment
Photograph the injuries at intervals rather than once. Keep the discharge instructions, the garment orders, and every prescription. Ask for the fire department incident number, because the investigation report names the origin and cause. Do not let anyone dispose of the appliance, the heater, or the chemical container. And say nothing to the property owner's insurer about how the fire started before you know the answer yourself.
If the same event cost a limb, our guide to amputation and limb loss covers that claim, and if the building's policy looks too small for the injuries, read what happens when the insurance is not enough.