Cases with Burn Injuries
As a Los Angeles personal injury lawyer, most of my cases involve serious injuries suffered in car accidents or premises liability cases (trip/slip and falls). We also handle dog bite cases and cases involving dangerous products.
Many people don’t know this—but burn injury cases also fall under the “personal injury” umbrella. And I have substantial experience handling burn injury cases.
Most of the burn injury cases have I’ve handled have similar fact patterns. They usually occur at restaurants and involve piping hot beverages, or in a setting where a waitress hands the customer the hot drink. The hand-off can be particularly dangerous! I’ve even handled cases where airline stewardesses spilled a hot drink on the passenger. Unfortunately, it’s a very common occurrence.
Burn injury cases are handled similarly to other personal injury cases. The case boils down to negligence: Did the employee’s actions fall below the standard of care in serving the customer?
Here are some examples: Did the employee fill up the cup too high such that the customer would certainly spill the contents while transporting it? Did the employee properly secure the lid so that the contents would not spill out? Did the beverage cup have a sleeve or “double-cup” the liquid so that the customer would be able to properly hold it? These are among the questions we ask and the facts we look to when we have burn injury cases involving hot liquids. And of course, if the employee himself or herself actually spills the drink on the customer, we examine the employee’s conduct to ascertain whether that employee was negligent in preparing and delivering the drink to the customer.
Whenever we hear about burn injuries, our minds always go to the McDonald’s hot coffee case. The public has been criticizing that case for decades, even though a closer examination of the facts demonstrates that that particular McDonalds was not taking customer safety seriously when it came to serving hot coffee. There are industry standards when it comes to how hot beverages should be prepared, stored, and served to customers. Many restaurant chains have their own standards, policies, and procedures regarding hot beverages too.
We’ve all been burned before. It’s no fun. Burns can cause serious injuries, and often plastic surgery is required to help the patient heal from their serious burn injuries. These cases can also have significant pain and suffering for the person suffering from burn injuries.
If you or someone you know was injured in a Southern California restaurant or other setting and suffered burn injuries, my office is ready to assist, 24/6.
