A burn injury can leave you facing months of treatment, multiple surgeries, and permanent scarring that changes how you live and how you see yourself. When a fire or burn was caused by someone else’s negligence, a defective product, or an unsafe property condition, Nevada law gives you the right to pursue compensation. That compensation may come through a settlement or a trial verdict.
The severity of the burn and the treatment it requires determine what your case is worth.
Drummond Law Firm offers a free consultation to evaluate your burn injury claim. Call (702) 366-9966.
Burn Injury Attorneys Serving Las Vegas
Drummond Law Firm represents burn injury victims throughout Las Vegas with direct, attorney-led legal representation. Every client works with a licensed attorney who documents the burn severity, identifies the liable parties, and builds a case designed to recover the full value of your claim. You will never be passed off to a paralegal for the decisions that count.
All serious burns in southern Nevada are treated at the UMC Lions Burn Care Center, the only ABA-verified burn center in the state. The medical records generated at UMC, including burn depth classification, total body surface area calculations, and operative reports for skin grafts, form the evidentiary foundation of your case. Our attorneys work directly with these records to build your claim.
Craig Drummond has litigated personal injury and premises liability cases throughout Nevada and brings more than 20 years of trial experience to every case. As a former U.S. Army Captain and JAG attorney, he prepares every claim with the discipline that litigation against property owners and product manufacturers demands.
What Sets Drummond Law Firm Apart?
Our attorneys pursue burn injury claims against property owners, product manufacturers, employers, and any other party whose negligence or defective product caused your injury. When multiple parties share liability for a fire or burn, we file against each one to maximize your recovery.
Burn cases require medical experts who can calculate the long-term cost of skin grafts, reconstructive surgery, rehabilitation, and psychological treatment. We retain burn care specialists and life care planners who project the full lifetime cost of your injuries, not just the bills you have received so far. The projection separates a settlement that covers your current expenses from one that accounts for future treatment needs.
The Reduced Fee Guarantee ensures our attorney fee will not exceed your net recovery, and you will not pay a fee unless we win your case.
When the stakes are high, you need an attorney who’s already been tested under pressure.
Four Degrees of Burn Severity
The degree of your burn is one of two primary factors that determine settlement value. The other is the total body surface area affected, which is covered in a later section.
First-degree burns damage only the outer layer of skin. They produce redness, minor swelling, and pain but typically heal within days. These burns rarely support significant settlement claims.
Second-degree burns penetrate the epidermis into the dermis, causing blisters, swelling, and severe pain. These burns may require medical treatment and can leave permanent scarring depending on the depth and location. Recovery often takes several weeks.
Third-degree burns destroy the full thickness of the skin, including the epidermis and dermis, and may damage the fat layer beneath. The burned tissue cannot regenerate on its own. These burns require skin graft surgery, produce permanent scarring, and generate substantial medical costs.
Fourth-degree burns extend through the skin into muscle, tendon, or bone. These injuries may require amputation, produce lifelong disability, and generate the highest medical costs of any burn classification. Fourth-degree burns are catastrophic injuries that fundamentally alter the victim’s ability to work, live independently, and perform daily tasks.
How Nevada Law Affects Your Burn Injury Claim
Nevada follows modified comparative negligence under NRS 41.141. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, and if a jury assigns you more than 50 percent responsibility, you are barred from recovering anything.
The defendant will argue that you contributed to the burn by ignoring posted safety warnings or remaining in a dangerous area after noticing the hazard.
In premises liability cases, the property owner will argue you were aware of the fire risk and chose to stay. In product liability cases, the manufacturer will argue you misused the product or failed to follow the instructions.
Nevada places no cap on non-economic damages in burn injury cases. A jury is free to award the full amount it believes your pain, suffering, scarring, and disfigurement are worth.
Common Causes of Fire and Burn Injuries in Las Vegas
Drummond Law Firm handles burn injury claims arising from fires, explosions, chemical exposure, and defective products throughout Las Vegas and Clark County.
Residential and commercial fires caused by faulty wiring, defective appliances, gas leaks, or building code violations produce some of the most severe burn injuries. Apartment complexes and older commercial buildings with outdated electrical systems are frequent sources of these fires.
Chemical burns from industrial solvents, cleaning products, or pool chemicals occur at hotels, restaurants, and commercial properties across Clark County. These burns can damage tissue rapidly and may not produce visible symptoms until hours after exposure.
Scalding injuries from defective water heaters, commercial kitchen equipment, or steam line failures are common in the hospitality and restaurant industries. Las Vegas employs tens of thousands of workers in commercial kitchens where burn exposure is a daily occupational hazard.
Electrical burns from exposed wiring, defective electrical panels, and improperly maintained equipment cause deep tissue damage that standard thermal burns do not. Electrical burns often injure internal tissue while leaving the skin surface relatively intact.
Explosion injuries from propane tanks, natural gas leaks, and lithium-ion battery failures produce burns combined with blast force trauma. These cases frequently involve both premises liability and product liability claims.
Who Can Be Held Liable for a Burn Injury?
Liability depends on how the burn occurred. Your attorney identifies every party that contributed to the conditions that caused the fire or burn and files against each one.
Premises Liability Claims
When a burn results from an unsafe property condition, the property owner or manager may be liable under premises liability. Defective electrical systems, missing smoke detectors, blocked fire exits, and failure to maintain fire suppression systems are all conditions that support a claim.
A landlord who ignored tenant reports of electrical problems or a business that failed a fire inspection and continued operating bears liability for the resulting injuries. The property owner cannot escape responsibility by arguing the fire was unforeseeable if the condition that caused it was documented before the incident.
Product Liability Claims
When a defective product causes the burn, Nevada’s strict liability standard applies. The victim does not need to prove the manufacturer was negligent. The victim must prove the product was defective when it left the manufacturer’s control and that the defect caused the burn.
Space heaters, gas grills, pressure cookers, and electrical appliances are among the most common products involved in burn injury claims. Your attorney can file against the manufacturer, the distributor, and the retailer under Nevada’s supply chain liability framework.
The only Nevada personal injury firm with a federally trademarked Reduced Fee Guarantee.®
What Factors Determine the Value of a Burn Injury Settlement?
The value of a burn settlement depends on measurable medical factors, not subjective estimates. Your attorney uses these factors to calculate a demand that reflects the full cost of what the burn has done to your body and your life.
Burn degree and depth are the starting point. Third and fourth-degree burns produce significantly higher settlements than first and second-degree burns. They require surgical intervention, cause permanent damage, and generate medical costs that accumulate over years rather than weeks.
Total body surface area, referred to as TBSA, measures the percentage of the body’s skin surface affected by the burn. A third-degree burn covering 5 percent TBSA and a third-degree burn covering 40 percent TBSA are radically different cases. The 40 percent burn requires months in the ICU, multiple skin graft surgeries, and generates medical bills that can exceed $1 million.
Insurers and juries both evaluate TBSA alongside burn degree when assessing settlement value.
Location on the body affects the non-economic component of the settlement. Burns to the face, hands, and genitals carry higher non-economic value because of their impact on appearance, daily function, and quality of life.
The number of surgeries and skin grafts the burn requires, and whether reconstructive procedures will continue into the future, directly affects the burn settlement calculation.
Why Burn Injury Cases Produce Higher Settlements
Burn injury cases consistently produce higher settlements than other personal injury cases with comparable medical costs. The driving force is not the medical bills alone but what the jury sees.
Scarring, disfigurement, and loss of function from a severe burn are injuries a jury can observe directly. Unlike soft tissue injuries or internal conditions that require medical testimony and imaging to explain, burn scars are permanent, visible, and unmistakable. A plaintiff who shows a jury the scarring on their hands, face, or arms does not need an expert to explain what happened. The injury speaks for itself.
The American Burn Association estimates that average burn treatment costs reach $780,000 per patient. The high cost of treatment, combined with the strong non-economic impact of visible disfigurement, drives burn settlements above claims with similar economic damages but less visible injuries.
Attorneys who handle burn cases understand this dynamic and use it to counter lowball offers from insurers. Those offers often focus only on the medical bills and ignore the human cost of permanent scarring.
What Compensation Can You Recover?
Nevada law allows burn injury victims to recover economic, non-economic, and punitive damages.
Economic damages cover emergency treatment, ICU stays, skin graft surgeries, wound care, rehabilitation, physical therapy, lost wages, and future medical costs for burns that require ongoing reconstructive procedures. When a burn produces permanent disability, economic damages also include lost earning capacity and the cost of home modifications or in-home care.
Non-economic damages account for pain and suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement, permanent scarring, and loss of enjoyment of life.
Punitive damages may apply when the defendant’s conduct was especially reckless or when a manufacturer knew about a product defect and failed to issue a recall. A landlord who was cited for fire code violations and continued renting units without making repairs may face punitive liability.
In wrongful death cases involving fatal fire or burn injuries, the victim’s family may recover funeral expenses, lost financial support, and grief-related damages.
Steps to Take After a Burn Injury
Seek emergency medical treatment immediately. Burns are progressive injuries. The tissue damage can worsen in the hours after the initial exposure if not treated. Delaying care can result in infection, deeper tissue destruction, and complications that affect both your health and your claim.
Photograph the burn, the scene, the source of the fire or heat, and any product or property condition that caused the injury. Take these photographs before anything is cleaned up, repaired, or discarded. If a product caused the burn, preserve it exactly as it was at the time of the injury. Do not return it to the manufacturer or retailer.
Report the incident to the fire department, your landlord or property manager, or your employer depending on where the burn occurred. Request a copy of any incident report or fire investigation report.
Do not give a recorded statement to the defendant’s insurance company before speaking with an attorney. Insurers contact burn victims quickly, and anything you say about how the fire started or how you responded can be used to support a comparative negligence defense.
How Long Do You Have to File a Burn Injury Lawsuit?
Nevada gives you two years from the date of your injury to file a personal injury lawsuit under NRS 11.190. Once that deadline passes, the court will almost certainly dismiss your case.
Burn injury evidence is time-sensitive. The property condition that caused the fire may be repaired within days. The defective product may be discarded or returned to the manufacturer. Fire investigation reports may be filed and archived with limited retention periods. Contacting an attorney early preserves your ability to inspect the scene, subpoena maintenance and inspection records, and secure expert analysis before the evidence changes.
How Drummond Law Firm Can Help
Drummond Law Firm provides attorney-led representation for burn injury victims across Las Vegas and Clark County. Our burn injury attorneys build each case with the medical documentation, expert testimony, and litigation preparation that burn claims require. Craig Drummond, a former U.S. Army Captain and Bronze Star recipient licensed for more than 20 years, brings military discipline to every case our firm handles.
The Reduced Fee Guarantee ensures we will never take more than you receive in a settlement, and you will not pay a fee unless we win your case. Call the Captain today at (702) 366-9966 to schedule a free consultation.
