Los Angeles Injury Lawyer Blog

Our personal injury firm has three serious burn cases arising from burns to clients that occurred from negligence of restaurant staff. Second degree burns and third degree burns can leave permanent scarring and disfigurement caused by hot liquid spills. Most people have heard of the McDonalds case where a customer received third degree burns to her lap from spilling scalding coffee. Restaurants should not be serving liquids so hot that they are scalding and can cause burns to the mouth or other parts of the body. Spill accidents of scalding hot liquids can cause serious burn injuries that leave permanent scars and are no laughing matter. These accidents should be taken seriously, and if you or a loved one suffers a serious spill burn injury, you should contact a personal injury lawyer.

One of our cases involves a little girl that was at a Chinese restaurant with her family. The waitress brought hot tea to the table and placed it on the lazy Susan in the middle of the table. The hot tea was placed near the edge of the lazy Susan and as one of the people at the table turned the lazy Susan, the waitress hit the hot tea with the menus, spilling the scalding tea on the little girl’s lap. The waitress was negligent in hitting the hot tea with the menu, and she was negligent in placing the hot tea near the edge of the lazy Susan, but the most serious negligence was on the part of the restaurant owner who made the tea so hot that even when the tea pot was brought out to the table, the tea was so hot that it caused third degree burns to the little girl's legs, lap and stomach. Our client was taken to the Grossman Burn Center where she was hospitalized for many days. Her medical bills are well in excess of $100,000. She has had to undergo skin grafts, operations and will have to undergo further operations and skin grafts as she grows and gets older. There is no reason why tea should be boiled at such a high temperature that even after it has been brought to the customer's table, it can cause third degree burns to a customer.

We have another case where the waitress negligently spilled hot soup on our client, causing third degree burn injuries. Once again, the waitress was negligent in spilling the hot soup on our client, but the more serious negligence was that the restaurant owner boiled the soup to such a high temperature that when the soup was being brought to the table, it was still so hot that it could cause third degree burns.

In both cases, the liquid was so hot that even though it was spilled on clothing and not bare skin, the hot liquid caused third degree burns. It doesn't make sense that liquid this hot should be served to customers as it would be too hot to drink at temperatures that could cause third degree burns.

In a third case, the second degree burns were caused by the hotel and pool maintenance company not checking the automatic chlorinator which caused the spa to have so much chlorine in the spa that the chlorine not only turned out client's bathing suit from blue to white, it caused her entire body from the waist down to suffer second degree burns.

Burns are one of the most painful injuries a person can suffer. Even if there is no scarring, the after effects can cause sensitivity to the sun light which may cause the person to not be able to sit out in the sun with the burned areas exposed to the sun. Even though these are difficult cases, our personal injury attorneys have over 50 years experience handling accident cases, and have been successful in recovering just compensation for our clients. Please call us at the Law Offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP if you have been a victim of a liquid burn injury.