Burn injuries are among the most painful and life-altering injuries a person can suffer. Treatment is long, expensive, and often incomplete. Many burn victims face permanent scarring, nerve damage, and psychological trauma that follows them for the rest of their lives. When someone else’s negligence caused those injuries, New York law allows victims to seek compensation. But how that number actually gets calculated is something most people don’t fully understand until they’re already in the middle of a claim.
There’s no standard formula. Settlement values vary widely depending on the facts of each case. What attorneys and insurers are really doing is building a picture of the total harm caused and assigning a dollar value to it.
The Two Main Categories of Damages
New York personal injury law allows burn injury victims to pursue two broad categories of compensation: economic damages and non-economic damages. Economic damages cover the measurable financial losses tied to the injury, including:
- Emergency room treatment, surgeries, and skin grafts
- Ongoing wound care, physical therapy, and rehabilitation
- Future medical expenses, including scar revision procedures
- Lost wages from time missed at work during recovery
- Reduced earning capacity if the injury affects long term employment
- Out of pocket costs like home care and medical equipment
Non-economic damages are harder to quantify but just as real. Pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and disfigurement all fall into this category. For burn injury victims, disfigurement damages can be significant. Visible scarring affects self-image, relationships, and daily functioning in ways that don’t show up on a medical bill.
How Burn Severity Affects Settlement Value
Not all burns are treated the same way under the law. The severity of the injury directly influences how much compensation may be available.
Third-degree burns, which destroy multiple layers of skin and often require grafting, typically result in higher settlements than first or second-degree burns. That’s not because the law values some victims more than others. It reflects the reality that more severe burns produce greater medical costs, longer recovery times, and more lasting physical and psychological damage.
The American Burn Association classifies burns by degree and affected body surface area, and these classifications often appear in medical records that attorneys use to build the damages portion of a case. A Brooklyn burn injury lawyer will work with medical providers and sometimes independent medical reviewers to document the full extent of the injury and its projected long-term impact.
The Role of Liability and Comparative Fault
Settlement value doesn’t only depend on how bad the injury is. It also depends on how clearly the defendant can be held responsible and how strong the evidence is that supports that conclusion.
New York follows a pure comparative negligence rule. If the injured person is found to share some portion of fault, their compensation is reduced by that percentage. So if a jury finds a victim 20% at fault, they recover 80% of the total damages. Insurance companies know this, and they use it aggressively in negotiations.
The Edelsteins, Faegenburg, & Blyakher LLP has spent decades handling serious injury cases in New York, building the kind of evidence record that holds up when insurers push back on liability.
Why Early Decisions Can Affect Your Settlement
The actions taken in the days and weeks after a burn injury often shape the entire case. Preserving evidence, getting proper medical documentation, and avoiding early recorded statements to insurance adjusters all matter more than most people realize.
Insurance companies tend to move quickly after serious injuries. They know that victims are vulnerable and that a rushed settlement, accepted before the full extent of the injury is understood, closes the case permanently. Once you sign a release, there’s no going back.
Get the Compensation Your Case Deserves
Burn injury cases require attorneys who understand both the medical side of these injuries and the legal strategies insurers use to minimize payouts. If you or someone you love suffered a serious burn injury due to someone else’s negligence, speaking with a Brooklyn burn injury lawyer at our firm is a strong first step toward understanding what your case may actually be worth. Contact us today.