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Yes. A deep burn can leave permanent scars, joints that no longer bend fully, damaged nerves, pain that continues after the skin closes, and lasting emotional trauma. Federal medical guidance warns that a major burn can lead to scarring, disability, and deformity, which is why it needs urgent care. Maryland law lets an injured person recover for those losses from the party whose negligence caused the burn. If you were burned on the job, workers’ compensation usually replaces a lawsuit against your employer, but you may still have a claim against another party, such as an equipment maker or property owner. A Maryland burn injury attorney can measure what a lifetime with that injury will cost.
How Deep Burns Cause Lasting Damage
Doctors sort burns by how deep they go. A first-degree burn damages only the outer layer of skin and causes pain, redness, and swelling. A second-degree burn reaches the layer underneath and causes blistering. A third-degree burn damages or destroys both layers of skin, and the burned area can turn white or blackened and go numb. The deepest burns extend into fat, muscle, and even bone. How a burn heals depends on its type, its size, and where it is on the body.
Federal medical references describe several conditions that stay with a person after the wounds close:
- Permanent scars, with healed skin that stays more sensitive to temperature and light than normal skin
- Contractures, where a severe burn over a joint leaves it with decreased movement and reduced function
- Lost function in the eyes, nose, or ears when those areas are badly burned
- Reduced breathing capacity and permanent lung damage after a person inhales smoke, steam, or superheated air
Each of these conditions could change the work a person can do and the tasks they can handle at home. Each one also needs medical records that prove it.
Pain and Trauma Can Outlast Even a Small Burn
The burn injury specialists at the federally funded Burn Model Systems centers define chronic burn pain as pain that lasts six months or longer after the wound has healed. Some burn pain comes from nerves the burn damaged. Survivors describe it as shooting or burning pain, or a feeling of pins and needles. The same researchers report that burn pain does not necessarily track the size of the burn, so a small burn can still be very painful.
Emotional injuries follow the same pattern. When stress reactions to a traumatic event do not go away, they can develop into post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. A burn survivor with PTSD can have nightmares, flashbacks, and a strong urge to avoid the kitchen, the car, or the place where the burn happened. Burn Model Systems researchers report that how intense PTSD symptoms are and how long they last are not related to how severe the burn was.
These losses matter in a claim because an insurance adjuster can see a scar in a photograph. The adjuster cannot see nerve pain or nightmares. We work to make sure the records show both.
What Compensation Covers When a Burn Is Permanent
Maryland separates compensatory damages, the money meant to make up for an injury, into two groups. Economic damages are losses with a price tag. For a permanent burn injury, they can include:
- Future surgeries to replace burned skin, and other procedures your doctors recommend
- Physical and occupational therapy to keep burned joints moving
- Mental health treatment for PTSD, depression, or anxiety
- Wages lost during treatment and recovery
- Lost earning capacity, meaning the income you can no longer earn over the rest of your working life because of the injury
Noneconomic damages cover the harm that has no price tag. Maryland’s noneconomic damages law defines that harm to include pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, and loss of consortium. Loss of consortium is the harm an injury does to a marriage. In a burn case, a visible scar is a form of disfigurement, and a stiff joint is a form of physical impairment.
Maryland caps noneconomic damages, and the cap rises by $15,000 every October 1. The limit that applies depends on when the claim arose. The date the lawsuit is filed does not change it. A claim that arose between October 1, 2025, and September 30, 2026, carries a cap of $965,000. A claim that arises between October 1, 2026, and September 30, 2027, carries a cap of $980,000. Medical malpractice claims fall under a separate cap set by a different law, with its own dollar limits.
The jury is never told about the cap. If a verdict goes over it, the judge reduces the award afterward. A loss of consortium claim based on the same injury shares that single cap with the injured person’s claim.
That law places no limit on economic damages, so the cap does not reduce an award for lifetime medical care or lost earning capacity. Separate Maryland laws cap the total that many state and local government bodies can be made to pay, economic losses included. For that reason, our catastrophic injury lawyers work to identify every responsible party at the start of a case.
Evidence That Proves a Burn Injury Is Permanent
Burn Model Systems researchers do not call burn pain chronic until it has lasted six months after the wound heals, so the full effect of a burn takes time to show. A settlement signed early can undervalue that injury, and a broadly worded release can end the claim before the next surgery is scheduled.
The strongest burn claims are built on:
- Burn center and surgical records that show the depth of each burn and every graft
- Opinions from treating surgeons about future procedures
- Therapy records that measure lost range of motion in each affected joint
- Mental health records that document PTSD, depression, or sleep problems
- A life care plan, prepared by a medical professional, that lists each future treatment and its cost
- Photographs of the scars taken at regular intervals during healing
Time limits apply while that evidence develops. Maryland generally allows three years from the date a claim arises to file a lawsuit, unless another law sets a different deadline. A child who is burned usually has until three years after turning 18 to file their own claim. Claims against the State of Maryland or a Maryland local government usually require a written notice or claim within one year of the injury.
Maryland also follows contributory negligence, which means an injured person whose carelessness helped cause the burn can be barred from recovering anything, however small that share of the blame. The rule has narrow exceptions, such as for a child under five, and ordinary carelessness does not bar a strict liability claim against the maker or seller of a defective product. Defendants have every reason to blame the injured person, and our personal injury team answers that defense with evidence.
Talk With McGowan & Cecil, LLC About Your Burn Injury
We build each burn claim to account for the care and income that every year ahead will cost. Our attorneys bring over 120 years of combined experience, and every client works directly with real attorneys and real paralegals. You pay no attorney fee unless we recover money for you. Contact our Laurel office for a free consultation. Se habla español.