Attorney Serving People In Austin With Severe Burn Injuries

Last updated on March 18, 2026

Burn injuries are painful, difficult to treat and are often disfiguring. If you’ve suffered a burn injury due to someone else’s negligence, you need legal representation and help to get compensated the way you deserve.

I’m injury attorney Matthew Shrum, and I’ve spent my career in Austin helping my clients get the help they need, both practical and legal. As a burn injury attorney, I provide hands-on attention to you while you recover from the pain and distraction of a burn or another catastrophic injury. With me as your lawyer, you won’t be just a case file; you’re a person in need of help and I’ll treat you with the care and attention you deserve.

Why Burn Injuries Are So Severe

Burn injuries are so severe because burns, either from direct heat or chemical reactions, do a unique type of damage to your body. A cut or an abrasion are surface level injuries to your skin, and is similar to a burn injury as you may find. However, a burn caused by intense heat goes much deeper and causes far different damage. There are three severities of burn injury:

• First-degree or superficial: These are burns that can be simple red skin and only affect the outer layer of the skin. These types of burns are the most common and often treatable at home. Sunburns, for example, are a common first-degree burn.

• Second-degree burns or partial thickness: In a partial thickness burn, the burn goes through the outer layer of your skin and damages the lower layers of the skin. These lead to blisters and typically need medical intervention and take much longer to heal.

• Third-degree burns or full thickness: Third-degree burns are the most serious, and these require immediate medical attention. All three layers of the skin are burned, and this skin is typically fully dead. Any third-degree burn is potentially life-threatening.

In relation to the severity of the burn, the amount of the body suffering from the burn must be included in the calculation. On a small scale, such as a first-degree burn on a finger, or even a small acute second-degree burn, such as a friction burn on your heel from tight shoes, does not often require seeing a medical professional.

However, first and second-degree burns across the entire surface of your back or all over your legs can lead to considerable pain and suffering for multiple days or weeks. The infection challenge in treatment is considerable, and you will need help and potentially painkillers to even address your day-to-day experiences. Third-degree burns equate to full tissue death and can hospitalize you, no matter the size.

Common Causes Of Burn Injuries

Burn injuries can occur in almost any situation that you can imagine; even light activities such as hiking or camping can lead to minor burn injuries. However, major burn injuries are a different matter and will often come from one of these causes:

• Vehicle fires: All motor vehicles are operated by complex machinery that can and does catch fire under the right conditions. These fires tend to be serious, fast-moving and extremely hot, leaving victims with widespread serious burns.

• Workplace accidents: Kitchens, restaurants, manufacturing facilities, and many more places of work are around heat, fire and boiling materials all day long. In an instant, these heated materials can leave people with serious, painful, long-lasting injuries.

• Chemical exposure: Chemical burns are not exactly caused by heat, but by the reaction of chemicals on your skin. Initial treatment is complicated because each type of chemical burn needs a different approach to neutralize before treatment can begin. Needless to say, these burns can cause untold amounts of pain and come with long recoveries.

Depending on the series of events that led to you being inflicted with the burn, you may have to pursue a different legal avenue for compensation. For example, a workplace burn would generally go through workers’ compensation, while someone burned in a motor vehicle accident would typically file a personal injury lawsuit.

With my experience in Texas liability law and knowledge about burns, I can guide you to the right path to go after what you deserve.

Damages Available To Burn Victims

Damages are the sum total of money available to people who have suffered an injury caused by another person. The damages for any burn injury victim fall into two larger categories: economic and noneconomic. The simplest way to distinguish between these damages are looking at how much of your pain comes with a bill directly and which ones do not.

Those pains that you can easily quantify with a dollar figure for treatment are the economic damages, and they are things like:

• Hospital bills
• Transportation for appointments
• Rehabilitation bills
• Reconstructive surgery
• Mobility aids

The economic damages of an injury are recoverable up to 100% because there is no cap on them. Noneconomic damages, which can include pain and suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement and many other more difficult to quantify damages, are capped at $750,000, in most cases.

In my career as an injury lawyer, the people who I have seen suffer the most are those afflicted with serious burns. Burns can change how you interact with the world and create post-traumatic responses to many situations. Lives are ruined after serious burns, and that’s why it’s so important to understand what you can pursue for noneconomic damages.

Get Insight And Help Today In A Free Consultation

The recovery from a serious burn can be simple or complex, but no matter what, you will need considerable legal guidance along the way. You deserve to have the compensation and aggressive representation necessary to get back to your life. I’m here to help you with that.

Call my office in Austin at 512-994-0313 or send me an email using this online form to get started with your free consultation.