A defective appliance, a chemical reaction from a product you bought at a May River Road store, or an unsafe place of work: all of these can cause burn injuries with long-term consequences, both physical and psychological.
A serious burn is a devastating injury, demanding intensive medical care, repeated surgeries, and a long recovery. When a burn results from another party's negligence in Bluffton, state law may allow a claim for the full extent of the harm. A Bluffton, SC, burn injury lawyer can help you build a strong claim.
At the Arndt Law Firm, we represent burn injury victims across Bluffton and Beaufort County. If you suffered a burn injury and wonder whether you are owed compensation, contact us. The first consultation is free.
Thermal burns come from flame, hot surfaces, and hot liquids. A scald from a water heater set too high points at a landlord or a property manager. A flash fire from a gas appliance points at an installer, a maintenance contractor, or the manufacturer of the appliance.
Electrical burns point at whoever was responsible for the wiring, the equipment, or the energized line, which can mean a contractor, a property owner, a utility, or an equipment manufacturer. Those injuries are frequently far worse than they look at the surface, because the current travels through tissue between entry and exit points.
Chemical burns point at the manufacturer of the substance, the employer or business that stored it, and whoever was responsible for labeling and handling. Friction and radiation burns arise in narrower settings with their own defendants.
Vehicle fire burns sit in a category of their own, because they combine an ordinary collision claim against a driver with a potential product claim against a manufacturer over fuel system design or crashworthiness. Those two claims run alongside each other, and a South Carolina burn injury lawyer can explain to you how they interact.
Because the mechanism identifies the defendant. A scald points at a property owner, an electrical burn at whoever controlled the equipment or the line, a chemical burn at a manufacturer or the business that stored the substance, and a vehicle fire at both a driver and potentially a manufacturer.
If a product caused the burn, South Carolina applies a body of law that does not require proof of carelessness at all.
Section 15-73-10 provides that one who sells any product in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the user or consumer is subject to liability for physical harm caused, where the seller is engaged in the business of selling such a product, and where it is expected to and does reach the user without substantial change in the condition in which it is sold.
The rule applies even if the seller has exercised all possible care in the preparation and sale of the product, and although the user has not bought the product from or entered into any contractual relation with the seller. A manufacturer that did everything right can still be liable for a defective product, and a person who never bought the item can still sue.
There is a corresponding limit. Section 15-73-20 provides that a user who discovers the defect, is aware of the danger, and nevertheless proceeds unreasonably to make use of the product is barred from recovery. That is a genuine bar, not a percentage reduction, and it is narrower than an ordinary comparative fault argument because it requires actual discovery and awareness.
South Carolina also incorporates the comments to Section 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts by reference as the legislative intent of the chapter, which means the interpretive framework is broader than the statutory text alone.
If the burn happened from premises liability, the claim runs through the property framework. South Carolina recognizes four classifications of people who come onto premises, and each is owed a different standard of care.
A business guest is an invitee and is owed reasonable care, including a duty to warn of latent or hidden dangers of which the owner has actual or constructive knowledge. A hot water system, a gas connection, a faulty outlet, or a missing detector is exactly the kind of latent condition that framework addresses, since a guest cannot inspect any of it.
Landlord cases recur in this area. Water heater temperature settings, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, electrical systems in older housing, and heating equipment all sit with the party that controls the building. A Bluffton, SC, premises liability lawyer can help you build these claims.
Where the burn arose from how a building was constructed, a contractor, subcontractor, or design professional may be involved, and a separate deadline applies to those claims.
A large share of serious burns are work injuries, and the structure of the claim changes accordingly.
South Carolina Code Section 42-1-540 provides that the rights and remedies under the workers' compensation title exclude all other rights and remedies against the employer, at common law or otherwise. The employer is generally unavailable as a negligence defendant no matter how clearly it was at fault.
The same section carries a carve-out that is routinely omitted. The limitation does not apply to injuries resulting from acts of a subcontractor of the employer, and it does not bar an action by an employee of one subcontractor against another subcontractor where both were hired by a common employer. On a site with layered contractors, that language frequently determines whether a claim exists.
What otherwise survives is the third-party claim: against the manufacturer of the equipment, another contractor on the site, the owner of the property, or the supplier of a chemical. That claim carries a shorter deadline than the general one.
Under Section 42-1-560, it must be commenced within one year after the compensation carrier accepts liability or makes payment, after which the right of action passes to the carrier by statutory assignment following written notice and twenty days.
The carrier also holds an interest in what the third-party claim recovers, which affects how a settlement is structured and what the injured worker actually keeps.
Not usually the employer, because workers' compensation is generally the exclusive remedy against it. A third-party claim against an equipment manufacturer, another contractor, or a property owner may exist, and it must be commenced within one year of the carrier accepting liability or paying benefits.
One of the most important steps is preserving the thing that caused the injury. A product claim without the product is a far harder case, and appliances, heaters, wiring, tools, and containers are routinely discarded, repaired, or returned to a manufacturer for inspection before anyone thinks to object.
Fire investigation reports are the next source. Where a fire department or fire marshal investigated, that file contains origin and cause analysis that would cost a great deal to reproduce.
In this area, the Bluffton Township Fire District responds alongside Beaufort County EMS, and the investigating law enforcement agency depends on location: Bluffton Police Department inside town limits, the South Carolina Highway Patrol on the corridor outside them.
Other records include maintenance and inspection history for the equipment or building, product recall and complaint history, safety data sheets for a chemical, code enforcement history for the property, and any employer safety documentation where the burn occurred at work.
Photographs of the injury over time carry unusual weight in burn cases, because the appearance changes substantially through healing and grafting, and a photographic record taken throughout tells the story that a final examination cannot.
Burn injuries are among the most expensive to treat and the slowest to resolve. Serious burns involve staged surgery, grafting, extended wound care, infection risk, and contracture release procedures that can continue for years, particularly across joints.
Economic damages include acute treatment, reconstructive procedures, therapy, adaptive equipment, and future care that a physician projects. Lost earning capacity is frequently significant, since burns to the hands, arms, or face can end a person's ability to do the work they trained for.
Non-economic damages cover pain, which in burn treatment is prolonged and severe, along with permanent scarring and disfigurement. South Carolina places no general statutory cap on non-economic damages in an ordinary injury case. The cap in the code applies to medical malpractice claims and does not reach a product, premises, or vehicle fire claim.
Punitive damages require clear and convincing evidence of wilful, wanton, or reckless conduct. They are capped at the greater of three times compensatory damages or $500,000. That rises to the greater of four times compensatory damages or $2,000,000 if the conduct was motivated primarily by unreasonable financial gain, or if it could subject the defendant to a felony conviction.
The cap is removed if the defendant intended to harm, has pled guilty to or been convicted of a felony arising from the same conduct, or acted while impaired by alcohol or drugs to the degree that judgment was substantially impaired.
An offer made before the reconstructive picture is settled is an offer to resolve a claim before anyone knows its size.
| Mechanism | Likely defendant | Governing framework |
|---|---|---|
| Scald from water system | Landlord, property manager | Premises, invitee or tenant duty |
| Appliance or gas flash fire | Manufacturer, installer, maintenance contractor | Product liability, Section 15-73-10 |
| Electrical contact | Contractor, property owner, utility, equipment maker | Premises or product, depending on control |
| Chemical exposure | Manufacturer, business storing it, labeler | Product liability and premises |
| Vehicle fire | Driver and potentially manufacturer | Negligence plus a product claim |
In a serious burn case the treatment already received is frequently the smaller half of the loss. What determines the value is what still lies ahead, and that has to be established.
Future care in burn injuries is unusually predictable in kind and unusually long in duration. Scar revision and contracture release procedures recur, particularly where a burn crosses a joint and restricts movement as it heals. Pressure garments, splinting, and therapy continue for extended periods.
Skin over a graft behaves differently and needs ongoing management, and children who are burned face procedures repeated through growth.
Establishing that is medical work. It rests on treating physician opinion about what is likely to be required, and in larger cases on a written plan setting out each anticipated item, its frequency, and its cost. Where earning capacity is affected, the analysis reaches what the person can now do.
This is the reason timing matters so much in burn claims. An offer made while grafting is ongoing is an offer made before anyone can describe the eventual result, and a release cannot be reopened when the third revision procedure becomes necessary. The scarring component in particular is valued on the final appearance and function rather than on the initial wound.
Photographic documentation through the whole course supports all of it, because the difference between the acute injury, the post graft appearance, and the settled result is not something a final examination can convey on its own.
Because the largest components, future procedures and permanent scarring, cannot be valued until the treatment course is clear. Scar revision and contracture release can continue for years, and a release signed early cannot be reopened.
An injured person recovers as long as their share of the fault is 50 percent or less, with the award reduced by that percentage and barred at 51 percent, under Nelson v. Concrete Supply Company (1991). If a burn case has more than one defendant, the comparison is to the combined fault of all of them.
A product claim carries a feature worth knowing. For causes of action accruing on or after January 1, 2026, a defendant in most South Carolina injury cases may ask that a party who was never sued be placed on the verdict form and assigned a share of the fault. Section 15-38-15(H)(4) provides that a nondefendant is not added where the causes of action involve strict liability, which reaches a product claim brought under Section 15-73-10.
That means a burn case with both a negligence claim and a product claim can be governed differently depending on which theory is being tried, which is a reason to plead deliberately.
The general deadline is three years from the date of injury. Where the injury was not apparent at the time, the same three years runs from when the person knew or by reasonable diligence should have known that a cause of action existed.
Where the burn arose from the construction of a building, Section 15-3-640 bars any action based on the defective or unsafe condition of an improvement to real property more than eight years after substantial completion against a designer or contractor. That repose period can extinguish a claim over wiring or a gas installation regardless of when the fire happened.
A claim against a government defendant runs two years under the Tort Claims Act, extendable to three by filing a verified claim first within one year of the injury, with damage caps and no punitive damages. Recovery is capped at $300,000 per claimant for a single occurrence and $600,000 in total.
A workers' compensation third-party claim runs one year. Claims by children are tolled during minority, though not beyond one year past the eighteenth birthday.
A suit is filed in the Court of Common Pleas for Beaufort County, in the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit, with the Clerk of Court at 102 Ribaut Road in Beaufort.
Seriously burned patients from this area are transported to Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah. Specialized burn treatment frequently requires transfer beyond the initial receiving facility, which means the medical record spans multiple institutions and often more than one state. Assembling it takes longer than a single hospital file, and the requests are worth making as early as the claim allows.
Burns in rented housing recur in a pattern, and responsibility usually sits with the party that controls the building systems.
Water heater temperature is the clearest example. A thermostat set high enough to scald is a condition of the plumbing system, and scald injuries to children and older adults follow from it directly.
Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors raise a related question. Whether required devices were present, functional, and appropriately placed is documentary. However, South Carolina Code section 5-25-1380 provides that failure to comply with the state's smoke detector article does not create a cause of action for a per se statutory violation, or for negligence-based liability, for death, injury, or damages.
A detector case therefore has to rest on something else: the landlord's obligation under Section 27-40-440(a)(1) to comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety, an express term of the lease, or a separately adopted fire code provision.
Electrical systems in older housing, gas connections, and heating equipment complete the list. Each is a system the occupant cannot inspect and did not install, which is the reason the duty framework reaches conditions a landowner should have discovered.
If a management company handled maintenance, it may carry its own commercial coverage and its own records, which are frequently more complete than an individual owner's.
A landlord owes a statutory duty. Section 27-40-440(a) requires the landlord to comply with applicable building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety, to keep the premises fit and habitable, to make available reasonable amounts of hot water and reasonable heat, and to maintain in reasonably good and safe working order all electrical, gas, plumbing, heating and ventilating facilities and appliances they supplied.
If the landlord controlled the system and the temperature setting created a hazard the tenant could not inspect, that falls within the duty to address conditions a landowner knew of or should have discovered.
No. Under Section 15-73-10 the rule applies even where the seller exercised all possible care, and even where you never bought the product from that seller.
Section 15-73-20 bars recovery if a user discovers the defect, is aware of the danger, and nevertheless proceeds unreasonably to use the product. That requires actual discovery and awareness, not what you should have noticed.
Yes. Preserving the product, the appliance, or the container is often the difference between a viable product claim and an unprovable one. Do not return it for inspection without advice.
Workers' compensation has its own process, and a third party claim must be commenced within one year of the carrier accepting liability or making payment, which is shorter than the general three-year deadline.
Nothing up front. Consultations are free and the fee is contingent on recovery.
At the Arndt Law Firm, we build every Bluffton burn injury case by identifying every responsible party and applicable insurance, preserving all available evidence, and documenting the full cost of the injury.
Attorney Jonathan Arndt previously defended insurers and institutional clients, so we understand how these high-value claims are evaluated and contested; we build claims to reflect the true cost of a catastrophic burn.
If you or someone you love suffered a serious burn in Bluffton or Beaufort County, early action is essential. Contact us or call (843) 594-1861 for a free consultation; there are no fees unless we recover.
Last reviewed: September 2026
This page was reviewed by Jonathan S. Arndt, licensed in South Carolina since 2018.
Content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed South Carolina attorney for guidance specific to your situation.
