Tupelo Burn Injury Lawyer
A burn at work can mean skin grafts, months of wound care, scarring that changes how you do your job, and a long stretch with no paycheck. Getting from that injury to full medical treatment and fair wage benefits is the goal of a burn injury claim, and Tupelo burn injury lawyer representation from Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC is built around reaching it. The firm handles workers’ compensation and related injury claims for people hurt on the job across Mississippi and Louisiana, including Tupelo, Lee County, and the surrounding communities of north Mississippi.
Burn cases are unlike most other workplace injury claims. A bad back or a torn shoulder can be argued over for months because the insurer blames age or an old injury. A burn is visible, documented from the first minute in an emergency room, and hard to attribute to anything but the incident. The fight in a burn claim usually comes later: whether the treatment your burn surgeon recommends will be approved, whether the carrier pushes you back to work before the wounds have healed, and whether anyone takes the lasting effects seriously, such as nerve damage, contracture, sensitivity to heat, and the toll of disfigurement.
Why Choose Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe for a Burn Injury Claim
Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC is a workers’ compensation firm representing injured workers throughout Mississippi and Louisiana, including Tupelo, Lee County, and communities across north Mississippi. Workers’ compensation is the center of the firm’s practice, not a side matter taken when one happens to walk in, and its attorneys bring more than 75 years of combined experience to claims that have been denied, delayed, or cut off. The firm has recovered more than $100 million in settlements for clients, works on a no recovery, no fee basis, offers free consultations, advances the costs of the case, answers its phones around the clock, and serves Spanish-speaking clients in their own language.
Burn work is not new to this team. The firm secured a $221,000 settlement for a land-based oil rig worker with severe burns to the lower extremities, and it regularly handles burns and catastrophic injuries suffered on rigs, in plants, and on industrial job sites. Other results show how the firm approaches serious, long-term injuries generally, including $685,000 for a surgical tech with a lower back injury, $600,000 for a construction worker with a complex back injury, and $385,000 for a project manager injured when he was struck in his work vehicle.
Rob Lunsford, Founding Partner, has spent his entire legal career representing injured workers. Brad Baskin and Jennifer Priebe, Partners, have been recognized by Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, and The National Trial Lawyers, and the firm was ranked by Best Law Firms for Workers’ Compensation Law, Claimants, in Jackson. Andrew Rueff has tried dozens of jury and bench trials to verdict and routinely appears before the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission. Keaton Belk and Erin Heimlicher round out the attorney team. Clients describe an easy, professional experience in which their attorney took time to listen and fought the insurance company at every step.
Burn Injuries We See in Workers’ Compensation Claims
- Thermal burns from fires and flash events: Welding, cutting, and hot work in fabrication shops and plants can ignite materials or trigger flash fires. These often produce deep burns to the hands, face, and forearms that require debridement and grafting.
- Chemical burns: Cleaning agents, acids, caustics, and industrial solvents burn on contact and keep burning until neutralized. Manufacturing, sanitation, and agricultural work all carry this exposure, and eye and respiratory injuries can accompany the skin damage.
- Electrical burns: Contact with energized lines or equipment can leave small entry wounds on the surface with serious damage beneath. Linemen, electricians, and construction crews face this risk, and cardiac and nerve complications can appear later.
- Scalds and steam burns: Pressurized steam, boiling liquids, and hot oil injure workers in food processing plants, commercial kitchens, and industrial settings. Scalds are often underestimated at first and can worsen over the first few days.
- Burns on rigs and industrial sites: Oil field and plant work involves heat, pressure, and flammable materials. These cases frequently produce severe lower-extremity and full-body injuries that the firm has handled for workers in the industry.
- Firefighter and first responder injuries: Burns suffered in the line of duty, along with the heart, lung, and other conditions tied to the job, fall within the claims the firm handles for first responders.
- Burns with inhalation or secondary injuries: Smoke and fume inhalation, falls while escaping a fire, and infections that set in during healing can each become part of the claim and affect the benefits owed.
What to Do After a Burn at Work in Tupelo
Get medical care first, and tell the provider the burn happened at work so it is recorded that way from the start. Do not decide for yourself that a burn is minor. Some injuries deepen over the first day or two, and the early records become the foundation of the claim. Ask for copies of everything, and follow the treatment plan, including wound care appointments, because gaps in treatment are something insurers use against you.
Report the injury to your employer, in writing if you can, as soon as you are able. In Mississippi you must give notice within 30 days of the accident, and the same 30-day window applies in Louisiana. Then comes the filing deadline. In Mississippi, if no disability benefits have been paid within two years of the injury, the right to benefits can be lost unless you file a claim with the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission within that time. The claim is started by filing a Petition to Controvert with the Commission. Louisiana generally requires a formal claim within one year of the accident, with a longer window possible when compensation payments have been made. Waiting for the carrier to “do the right thing” is how people run out the clock.
Write down what happened while it is fresh: what you were doing, what failed or ignited, who saw it, and what equipment or chemicals were involved. Photograph the injury at every stage of healing and photograph the scene or equipment if you can. If a coworker witnessed it, get their name. Keep your pay stubs, since wage benefits are built on your average weekly wage. Mississippi covers workers from the first day on the job, with no waiting period, and pays wage replacement of up to two-thirds of your average weekly wage, subject to a statutory weekly maximum and a cap of 450 weeks for most disability categories.
Be careful with the insurance adjuster. A recorded statement is not required to get your benefits started, and casual comments about how the accident happened, or about whether you had ever had skin problems before, can be used to narrow the claim. Do not sign releases or settlement paperwork until someone on your side has read it.
Mississippi workers’ compensation cases are not heard in a county courthouse. They go to the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission, where a case is tried before an Administrative Judge. An appeal to the Full Commission is a review of the record already made, not a new trial, which is why the evidence built at the first hearing matters so much. A final Commission award can be appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court within 30 days of its filing and notice to the parties, and that court may assign the appeal to the Mississippi Court of Appeals. If you were hurt in Louisiana, the claim goes before a workers’ compensation judge at the Office of Workers’ Compensation Administration, with appeals to the appropriate Louisiana court of appeal.
How a Burn Claim Typically Unfolds
Most burn claims move in stages, and knowing the stages helps you stay a step ahead. The first stage is acute care: emergency treatment, possibly a burn center, wound management, and sometimes surgery. During this period the insurer should be paying medical bills and temporary disability benefits. This is also when problems start, such as a late first check, a refusal to authorize a specialist, or a dispute over whether the burn really happened the way you described.
The second stage is recovery and reconstruction. Burns often need repeated procedures, physical and occupational therapy to keep joints moving, scar management, and sometimes psychological care for trauma after a serious incident. Carriers like to push for a return to work in this window. Your treating doctor’s restrictions control what work you can do, and an offer of light duty that ignores those restrictions is not something to accept casually. If you return at lower pay, additional wage benefits may be available. In Louisiana, supplemental earnings benefits cover part of the gap when you cannot earn at least 90 percent of your pre-injury wages, and those benefits can run up to a 520-week maximum.
The third stage is maximum medical improvement and the question of permanent effects. Scarring, loss of range of motion, nerve damage, and reduced ability to work in heat or around chemicals all feed into how permanent disability is rated and valued. This is usually where settlement discussions begin, and it is where a burn claim can be undervalued if the long-term picture is not documented. Settlement terms, including how future medical care is handled, deserve careful review before anything is signed.
If benefits are denied or stopped at any stage, there is a path to challenge it. In Louisiana, a medical treatment denial can be disputed by filing a form with the Office of Workers’ Compensation Administration within 15 calendar days of the written denial, so that deadline arrives fast. In Mississippi, the contested claim goes to hearing before the Commission. Either way, the denial is the beginning of the dispute, not the end of the claim.
When Someone Other Than Your Employer Caused the Burn
Workers’ compensation generally pays regardless of fault, but it also limits what you can recover from your employer. When a different party contributed to the burn, you may have a separate personal injury claim on top of your comp benefits. Examples include a manufacturer whose equipment failed, a contractor who left a hazard on a shared site, a chemical supplier who mislabeled a product, or a negligent driver in a crash that ended in a vehicle fire. Those claims can reach damages comp does not, such as pain and suffering and the harm of permanent disfigurement.
The two claims have to be handled together. Settling one can affect the other, and the comp carrier may have a right to be repaid from a third-party recovery. The firm represents injured people in personal injury, premises liability, car and truck accident, and wrongful death matters across both states, so it can evaluate both claims at the outset. The deadline for a personal injury claim is different from the comp deadlines. In Mississippi, most negligence claims must be filed within three years, while claims against a county or other governmental body carry a one-year limit and a notice requirement. Mississippi also applies pure comparative negligence, which reduces a recovery by your share of fault rather than barring it.
Burn Injury Claim Questions Answered
Do I need a lawyer for a workers’ compensation burn claim?
Not every claim requires one, but burn claims tend to be long and expensive, and the carrier has adjusters and lawyers working for it. If your benefits are denied, delayed, reduced, or cut off, or if the burn will keep you out of work for an extended time, legal help can make a large difference.
How much does it cost to hire the firm?
Nothing up front. Consultations are free, the firm advances the costs of the case, and it is paid only if it recovers benefits or a settlement for you. Attorney fees in workers’ compensation cases are limited and approved under state law.
How soon do I have to report a burn injury to my employer?
Report it right away. Both Mississippi and Louisiana require notice within 30 days of the accident, and late notice can give the insurer an argument against your entire claim.
How long do I have to file a claim in Mississippi?
Generally two years from the date of injury, or from the last compensation payment, by filing a Petition to Controvert with the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission. If no disability benefits have been paid within two years and no claim is filed, the right to benefits can be barred.
What does workers’ compensation cover for a burn?
It covers reasonable and necessary medical treatment, which for burns can include emergency care, surgery, grafting, therapy, and follow-up care, plus wage replacement while you cannot work. In Mississippi, temporary and permanent total disability pay two-thirds of your average weekly wage, up to a statutory weekly maximum, for no more than 450 weeks. Additional benefits apply for permanent partial disability.
Can the insurance company make me go back to work before my burns heal?
They can pressure you, but your authorized treating physician’s work restrictions are what count. If the job offered exceeds those restrictions, you should not simply accept it. Talk with an attorney before you refuse or accept any return-to-work offer.
Does scarring or disfigurement increase what my claim is worth?
Permanent scarring, loss of motion, and nerve damage can affect how your permanent disability is evaluated, and they can matter significantly in any separate third-party injury claim. Documenting the long-term effects with your treating physicians and photographs is essential.
What if my employer says the burn was my fault?
Workers’ compensation is generally a no-fault system, so carelessness on your part usually does not eliminate your claim. Employers and carriers still raise it, and answering that argument is part of building the case. Fault matters more in a separate claim against a third party, where Mississippi reduces recovery by your share of fault.
Can I be fired for filing a burn injury claim?
Both Mississippi and Louisiana protect workers from retaliation for filing a comp claim. If you were let go or disciplined after reporting your injury, tell your attorney during the consultation so your options can be reviewed.
Will my health insurance pay while my comp claim is pending?
Work injuries are supposed to be handled through workers’ compensation, and health insurers often resist paying for them. If the carrier is slow or denies authorization, it is worth getting legal guidance on how to keep treatment going rather than letting wound care lapse.
What happens if my claim is denied?
You can contest it. In Mississippi, the case goes before an Administrative Judge at the Commission, then to the Full Commission on review, and from there to the Mississippi Supreme Court. In Louisiana, the case goes before a workers’ compensation judge, then to the court of appeal. Each step has its own strict deadlines.
Is it worth hiring a lawyer if my burn was relatively minor?
A first consultation costs nothing, so it is worth asking. Burns that look minor can scar or limit motion over time, and a claim closed too early may leave you without coverage for later care.
Serving Burn Injury Clients Across Tupelo and North Mississippi
The firm represents burn victims from Tupelo and throughout Lee County, including Saltillo, Verona, Plantersville, Shannon, Guntown, Baldwyn, and Nettleton. It also works with injured people in neighboring communities such as Pontotoc, New Albany, Corinth, Booneville, Fulton, Okolona, and Aberdeen, along with the wider reach of north Mississippi. Many of these workers are employed at manufacturing plants, furniture and upholstery facilities, food processing operations, and construction sites, where heat, chemicals, and machinery create burn risk.
Beyond the Tupelo area, the firm serves injured workers throughout Mississippi, from Jackson and Madison to the Gulf Coast, Hattiesburg, Southaven, and the Delta. It also handles Louisiana claims from New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Shreveport, and communities across south and north Louisiana. Whether the burn happened in a Tupelo plant or on a rig in another part of the region, the firm can take the case.
Talk With a Tupelo Burn Injury Attorney Today
If you were burned on the job, you do not have to take on the insurance company by yourself. A Tupelo burn injury attorney at Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe can review what happened, explain the deadlines that apply to you, and start working on getting your medical care and wage benefits secured. Consultations are free, you pay no fee unless the firm recovers benefits for you, and the phones are answered 24 hours a day. Call today to talk through your claim.
