A Shreveport burn comes out of an apartment kitchen, a job site, a defective heater or fuel system, or a wreck on I-20, I-49, or the Inner Loop. The ambulance goes to Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport on Kings Highway, the Level I trauma center, and Willis-Knighton and CHRISTUS Highland cover the rest of the metro. If a wreck caused the burn, the Shreveport Police Department writes the report inside the city limits and the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office writes it for the rest of Caddo Parish. A Caddo suit can be filed and tried in the First Judicial District Court at the Caddo Parish Courthouse, 501 Texas Street, and Trey Morris Injury Lawyers is at 509 Milam Street, across the street from it.
On a burn file we photograph the scene, pull the crash report if there is one, get the emergency intake note from the hospital, and chase the source of the heat (the landlord, the product, the company that controlled the hazard) before anyone treats workers’ compensation as your only door.
Results for Louisiana Clients
- $409 MillionWrongful Death
A tragic case where an impaired driver of a commercial vehicle ran a red light, then collided with our client, causing serious bodily injury to the mother and the loss of life of her daughter.
- $49 MillionMotor Vehicle Accident
An impaired driver of a stolen vehicle driving the wrong way collided with our client head-on, resulting in brain injury and multiple broken bones.
- $32,195,000Industrial / Workplace
Failure to maintain proper safety protocols led to an explosion at an industrial plant causing a series of catastrophic injuries from broken bones, burns, spinal injury, and mental anguish.
- $31.5 MillionIndustrial / Workplace
Brain and spinal injuries followed an oil-field company failing to maintain equipment and provide a safe work site.
- $17.25 MillionCommercial Vehicle Accident
Client was struck head-on by a disconnected load of an 18-wheeler that crossed the median causing broken bones and amputation.
- $13 MillionCommercial Vehicle Accident
On the interstate, an 18-wheeler failed to yield right of way then made an unsafe lane change causing the accident which resulted in major bone breaks, damaged organs, and ultimately a leg amputation.
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes; each case is decided on its own facts.
Do You Need a Burn Injury Lawyer in Shreveport, Louisiana?
Two things decide whether a lawyer is any use to you: how the burn happened, and how deep it went. A case review sorts both in one sitting and costs nothing. If nobody else’s conduct is behind it, or the skin healed clean, you hear that and get on with your week.
A deeper burn (a second-degree burn that blisters, a third-degree burn that destroys the full thickness of the skin, a fourth-degree burn that runs into muscle, tendon, or bone), or one that marks a part of you people can see, gives a review something to work with. It brings months of treatment and harm no single bill captures: scarring, a hand that no longer opens all the way, the revision surgery a plastic surgeon says is coming in two years. The review is where you learn your options and which Louisiana rules decide them, and our Louisiana burn injury page explains how burn severity is measured.
A burn becomes a legal matter when someone else’s conduct put the heat, the chemical, or the fuel where it reached you. A grease fire you started in your own kitchen is one situation. A gas leak your landlord was told about in March is another. The review asks who controlled the hazard, whether they knew or should have known about it, and what proof still exists, and naming that party early is what separates a case that moves from one that stalls.
What to Bring to a Free Burn Injury Case Review
A case review is a screening, not a filing. You do not need a complete file; bring what you have:
- Medical records, discharge papers, and any bills tied to the burn treatment
- Photographs of the burn at each stage of healing, plus photos of where it happened
- Names and phone numbers for anyone who saw it
- Any report filed with police, the fire department, a landlord, or an employer
- Any letters from an insurer
- The product, appliance, clothing, or equipment involved, kept exactly as it was
- A written note of the days you missed, what you paid out of pocket, and what you can no longer do
Put every scrap you have in one folder, and come anyway if you have almost none of it. The proof in a burn case, above all the product and the scene, degrades or gets hauled off, and a lawyer brought in early can freeze it while it is still there.
Local Office. Statewide Record.
- Across the Street
From the 1st JDC
Our 509 Milam St office sits across the street from the First Judicial District Court, where Shreveport injury suits are filed and tried.
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Trial attorneys, one team
Your case is handled by the firm's own trial attorneys, and we respond in minutes, 24/7.
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We come to you
Hospital, home, or the office at 509 Milam St. Free case review, and no fee unless we win.
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Cases resolved over $1 million
Verdicts and settlements of $1 million or more, won by the same trial team that handles Shreveport cases.
What Should You Do Immediately After a Burn Injury in Shreveport?
The first hours after a serious burn decide both how well you heal and what a claim looks like later. Get treated first. Then report it, save the physical evidence, and start writing down what the injury is costing you. If the other side’s adjuster calls and asks to record you, you are not required to give a recorded statement, and before you have legal advice it is usually a mistake: it locks in your first account of an injury nobody understands yet.
Get Emergency Medical Care and Follow Burn Treatment Instructions
Call 911 or go to an emergency room for any burn that blisters, chars, covers a wide area, or lands on the hands, face, feet, or a joint. Burns lie at first. A scald can look mild the first day before deeper damage shows, and hot grease and steam cause deep second- and third-degree burns. A chemical keeps eating tissue until it is fully removed, so the injury can be worse on Thursday than it was on Monday. Electrical entry and exit wounds can look small while the current has damaged muscle, nerve, and organ tissue along its path, and cardiac disruption is a genuine risk. Smoke alone can put someone in intensive care with almost no external burns. Prompt treatment cuts the infection risk and saves function you would otherwise lose.
The EMS run sheet, the hospital admission notes, and the burn unit chart record the depth, the total body surface area involved, and how the burn happened, and they are hard to attack because they were written for treatment, not for a lawsuit. Follow every instruction, keep the burn clinic appointments, and do not skip wound care or therapy; a gap in treatment is the first thing an adjuster reaches for. Ask your treating physician to note in the chart every complication you have had since discharge, including the ones you have been quietly living with. Sign the records release early. We get the burn unit records; you keep going to the appointments.
Report the Fire, Explosion, Scald, or Chemical Exposure
Report it to whoever is responsible for the place or the hazard: your supervisor for a burn at work, the property manager and the fire department for an apartment or hotel fire, the manager on duty for a scald or chemical exposure at a business. Ask for it in writing, get a copy before you leave, and note the names of everyone on shift that day. For fires and explosions, the responding fire department writes an origin-and-cause record that often names the thing that failed, and a police or incident report pins down the date and the plain facts while everyone still remembers them.
Preserve Clothing, Products, Photos, and Scene Evidence
The physical evidence in a burn case is usually the object that burned you: a space heater, a water heater, a lithium battery, a gas appliance, a chemical container, the shirt that caught. Do not throw it out, return it to the store, or let anyone repair it. Bag the burned clothing without washing it, keep the packaging and any labels or warnings, and store the product exactly as it was when it hurt you.
Photographs taken across the healing timeline are the most persuasive evidence in most burn cases, and scarring and disfigurement are permanent and often the largest part of a severe claim. Burns change as they heal, so images from the first days show a severity later photos cannot. Photograph the scene, the source, and the injury early and often: the burn against a plain wall, in consistent lighting, with the date on your phone, through grafting and until the scar settles. Where a burn limits motion, a short video of the restricted range shows a loss a still photograph never will. Dated images of that progression let a jury or an adjuster see the injury instead of reading it in clinical shorthand.
Where a landlord, an employer, or a manufacturer controls the scene or the equipment, that party has every reason to clean it up or replace it. Fire scenes get cleaned, demolished, and rebuilt, and surveillance footage overwrites on a loop measured in days. Once the facts give an honest basis, we send a preservation letter putting owners, employers, manufacturers, and insurers on written notice to keep the failed product or equipment, the scene conditions, the maintenance and inspection records, and the footage, and we arrange to have failed equipment secured and inspected before anyone modifies it. Kept as it was, the product lets an engineer examine whether it was defective or unreasonably dangerous, and a written chain of custody, showing who held it and when, keeps it admissible and takes away the argument that somebody tampered with it.
Track Medical Bills, Missed Work, Pain, and Daily Limitations
Keep every bill, receipt, and explanation-of-benefits tied to the burn, from the ambulance and the wound supplies to the mileage to Kings Highway and back, and save proof of the exact dates and pay you lost so the wage claim is calculated instead of guessed at. A short dated journal of your pain, your sleep, and what you can no longer do, kept as it happens, carries far more weight than a memory assembled eight months later.
What Causes Burn Injuries in Shreveport, and Who Is Liable?
Thermal burns from flame and hot surfaces are the most common serious burns because heat sources sit in every home, every workplace, and every engine bay on I-20. Burn claims in Shreveport and Caddo Parish follow the way the region makes its living. The Red River corridor carries heavy industry and energy work, and the metro is thick with rental property and hotels. I-20 runs east and west through the parish, I-49 runs north and south, and the LA-3132 Inner Loop carries commercial traffic across the south end of town.
Liability turns on who controlled the hazard that produced the heat, and a single fire or explosion can put a property owner, an employer, a contractor, an equipment manufacturer, and a driver in the frame at once. Under La. C.C. art. 2323, Louisiana gives a percentage of fault to everyone who contributed, including someone who is broke, someone who was never sued, someone who cannot be identified, and an employer that the workers’ compensation law protects from suit. Each defendant generally pays only its own share. The share of someone who cannot pay or is not pursued does not move onto the other defendants, so that part of the loss usually goes unpaid, and that is why pursuing every responsible party protects what the claim is worth. Make a written list of every party you think had a hand in it, even the ones you are unsure about, and bring it in.
Oilfield, Refinery, and Industrial Fires and Workplace Burns
Northwest Louisiana sits over the Haynesville Shale, and energy production and the industry around it account for a share of the worst burns in the region. Wellsite blowouts, flash fires from a gas release, pipeline and tank ignition, and equipment failures at processing and manufacturing plants can produce deep thermal burns and blast trauma in the same second. The contractor responsible for hot-work safety is the natural focus after a welding fire; the company that controlled a valve or a fuel line is the focus after a release that should never have happened.
Louisiana’s workers’ compensation law makes the Act the exclusive remedy for covered work injuries, with a narrow intentional-act exception, under La. R.S. 23:1032. In practice that means an injured employee generally cannot sue his own employer in tort for a workplace burn. The same protection covers a company that hired your employer to do work that is part of that company’s own business, or work it had itself agreed to do for someone else. On oilfield and plant sites, that company is often the site operator or the general contractor. The officers and employees of either company also share that protection while they are doing their jobs. A company outside that circle that caused the burn can be sued directly, such as an unrelated contractor, an equipment maker, or a property owner that did not hire your employer. That claim runs alongside the compensation claim instead of replacing it. Our Shreveport oilfield accident and industrial accident pages explain how those claims work on multi-company sites. Ask your foreman, in writing, for the names of every contractor working that location that day.
Apartment, Rental Home, and Hotel Fires
Structure fires in rental housing and lodging are a steady source of burn and smoke-inhalation injuries across the Shreveport metro. Faulty wiring, a smoke detector with no battery, a blocked exit, or a space heater doing the furnace’s job turns a manageable fire into a serious one. When the burn happens on someone else’s property, from a failed water heater, exposed wiring, a fire that started in a defective electrical panel, or scalding water at a rental, the owner or custodian of that property can be a defendant under La. C.C. art. 2317.1. When a landlord, a property manager, or a hotel operator let the building get that way, the injuries can support a claim well beyond a renter’s insurance policy.
What the building was like before the fire is usually the whole question. Fire department origin-and-cause reports, code-enforcement records, maintenance logs, earlier complaints about the same condition, and proof of whether the required safety devices were present and working show what the owner knew and when, and those records get shredded on a retention schedule nobody consults you about.
Vehicle Crashes, Truck Fires, and Fuel-Fed Burns
Fuel-fed fires after a crash produce some of the most severe burns we see. High-speed collisions on I-20, I-49, and the parish roads can rupture a fuel system and ignite it, stacking burns on top of crash injuries and turning a wreck you would have walked away from into a burn unit admission. The at-fault driver is a defendant, and if he was working, the employer or motor carrier answers too. Commercial truck wrecks raise the stakes because a tractor-trailer carries a large fuel load and sometimes hazardous cargo, and commercial trucking claims add defendants past the driver. These claims run a crash investigation and a mechanical one at once, because a fuel system that ignited in a low-speed impact raises a different question than one that failed in a catastrophic wreck.
Defective Products, Batteries, Heaters, and Gas Equipment
Lithium-ion batteries in phones, e-cigarettes, and power tools fail and catch fire. Space heaters, water heaters, gas appliances, and electrical equipment burn users when a design flaw, a manufacturing defect, or a missing warning makes them unreasonably dangerous. When a defective product may have caused the burn, the manufacturer and the rest of the chain of distribution become the focus. Keep the product if you still have it: you have to prove the defect, and a burned heater or battery is often the best proof. If it was already thrown out during cleanup, the claim is harder to prove but not over, because photos, the model number, and witnesses can still show what went wrong.
Restaurant, Nursing Home, and Commercial Premises Scalds
In food service, careless handling of boiling water, grease, and hot equipment burns workers and customers alike. Scalds turn up in restaurants, hotels, and rental housing, places where the person who gets burned is not the person who set the temperature. These claims come down to what the business knew or should have known about the hazard and whether it did anything reasonable, and incident reports, staffing records, and evidence of earlier incidents like yours establish whether the danger was foreseeable and preventable. In nursing homes and care settings, a scald from bathwater or heated equipment usually means nobody was watching a resident who could not check the water; our Shreveport nursing home page covers those claims.
What Compensation Can You Recover After a Shreveport Burn Injury?
A burn claim covers the medical bills already paid and the reasonable cost of care still ahead: debridement, skin grafting, often several reconstructive surgeries over months or years, wound care, pressure garments, and therapy. It covers lost wages and, when the injury permanently lowers what you can earn, lost earning capacity; a serious burn ends careers in the trades, in oilfield work, and in any job that needs full use of the hands, grip strength, or tolerance for heat. Scarring and disfigurement are their own compensable harm in Louisiana, separate from the cost of treating them, and loss of enjoyment of life covers what the burn took off the table, from working with your hands to swimming at Cross Lake to being comfortable in a short-sleeve shirt in July. Severe burns carry some of the highest damages in personal injury law because the treatment runs long, the scarring is permanent, and the effect on work and daily life does not end. Our Louisiana burn injury page explains each category of burn damages.
In an ordinary personal injury claim Louisiana puts no general cap on the total. The medical malpractice cap under La. R.S. 40:1231.2 reaches malpractice against qualified providers and nothing else. It does not touch a burn from a fire, an explosion, a defective product, or a hazardous premises.
When a burn kills, Louisiana law lets the surviving family bring claims for their own losses, and a separate survival claim compensates the pain and suffering the person went through between the injury and death. Our Shreveport wrongful death page explains who can file.
What Shreveport Clients Say
- Adam W.
Trey Morris what a great experience if I ever have to suggest a lawyer's office Morris is my first choice will be suggesting to friends and family
- Jaime C.
I had a great experience with [Trey Morris Injury Lawyers] in Shreveport.Trey Morris and his team really took care of everything from the beginning and kept me informed the whole time. They were easy to work with and always made sure I understood what was going on. I truly felt like they fought for me.
- Dena H.
I would greatly recommend [Trey Morris Injury Lawyers] wholeheartedly, I have known Kristen for years and to know that she has moved to such a wonderful law firm and continues to be such a wonderful person, extremely knowledgeable in her field.I highly recommend her as a paralegal to answer all your questions, as all of the group, couldn't ask for more professional and helpful law firm that puts you first and at ease.
- Kasey L.
Maliyah and Leah have been nothing but great!They are always so pleasant to speak with, very informative, and truly go above and beyond to assist. One of the things I appreciate most is that they always pick up the phone, making communication effortless. It's clear they genuinely have your best interests at heart. I Highly recommend them.
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Testimonials do not constitute a guarantee, warranty, or prediction regarding the outcome of your legal matter. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
What Deadline and Fault Rules Apply to a Shreveport Burn Claim?
Louisiana law governs a Shreveport burn claim, and it reads the same in every parish. You have two years from the day you were hurt to file suit (La. C.C. art. 3493.1), whether the burn came from an apartment fire or a crash on Bert Kouns Industrial Loop, and a product liability claim against a manufacturer carries the same two-year period. Louisiana calls this deadline a prescriptive period instead of a statute of limitations, but the effect is identical: once it runs, the defendant can raise it and have the case dismissed, however strong the proof of fault is. Prescription runs against minors (La. C.C. art. 3468), except that under art. 3493.1 it does not run against minors or interdicts in product liability actions involving permanent disability. A burn claim brought against a public body, or against one of its officers or employees, such as a city or parish that owned the property, carries procedural requirements on top of the ordinary prescriptive period, and missing one can sink a case that was filed on time.
Louisiana divides fault under La. C.C. art. 2323. For causes of action arising on or after January 1, 2026, a burn victim found 51 percent or more at fault takes home nothing. At 50 percent or less, the damages drop by the exact percentage assigned under that comparative fault rule. In a burn case the defense will say you ignored a warning label, moved too close to a heat source, worked without protective gear, or waited too long to get treated, and the answer is evidence: fire origin and cause findings, maintenance records, safety-standard compliance data, and expert reconstruction of how the fire or the exposure started. Do not argue fault with an adjuster. Send the evidence instead, and send it through counsel.
What Is the Process for a Burn Injury Settlement or Lawsuit in Caddo Parish?
Most burn cases settle before a jury is seated. The investigation runs while you are still in treatment, and when treatment has gone far enough that the injury and its future cost are understood, we assemble a demand package for the responsible party’s insurer. Many Caddo Parish burn claims resolve in that negotiation, without a suit, when the evidence leaves the carrier no room to argue fault or shrink the damages. Severe burns take longer, because settling before your treating physicians can state the full extent of the scarring, the number of surgeries still coming, and the permanent limits means accepting a number that will not cover care the injury demands for years.
If the carrier refuses a fair number, we file suit in Caddo, or in federal court when the parties and the amount in controversy support it. Louisiana lets you sue in the parish where you were hurt or in the parish where the conduct that caused your burn happened (La. C.C.P. art. 74). So if your burn happened across the river in Bossier Parish, the case can be filed in the 26th Judicial District Court in Benton, or in another parish if the conduct that caused it happened there. Discovery follows, and courts here commonly order mediation before trial, a day with a neutral where most remaining cases settle. If it fails, a judge or a jury decides fault and damages.
Why Choose a Dedicated Burn Injury Lawyer Over a General Personal Injury Attorney in Shreveport?
A severe burn case runs on work a general injury practice rarely does. The medical proof comes through plastic surgeons, burn units, and life-care planners, and the value rides on lifelong scar revision and lost earning capacity, not a stack of emergency room bills. A practice that already works with those specialists builds the case. One that does not undervalues the damages that matter most in a burn claim.
Burn Cases Require Expert Networks
A fire origin and cause investigator traces a blaze back to its source, and a safety or engineering expert measures the defendant’s conduct against the standard that applied, whether that is a product safety norm, a building code, or an industrial practice. On damages, a third-degree burn is not one treatment: it is skin grafts, staged reconstructive surgery, contracture releases as the scar tissue tightens, and physical therapy that can run for years. A plastic or reconstructive surgeon explains the graft procedures, the number of surgeries still ahead, and how permanent the scarring is. A life-care planner prices the future surgeries, therapy, and long-term care, and a vocational or economic expert quantifies lost earning capacity when burns to the hands, the face, or mobility keep someone out of the work he used to do. Together they turn a stack of records into a documented figure that reflects the real cost.
How Catastrophic Burn Claims Are Handled Differently
The exposure in a catastrophic claim is larger and the carrier knows it, so the patterns repeat: an early offer floated before the full extent of the scarring and the future surgeries is documented, a fight over which treatment the incident caused and which was pre-existing, and close scrutiny of any gap in care as proof the injury was less serious than claimed. Meeting them takes a treating burn physician’s causation opinion, a healing progression recorded over time, and a damages model built on expert projections rather than estimates. We build that record before the demand goes out, so the demand answers a case already proven instead of one still being assembled.
Local Knowledge: Caddo Parish Courts, Defense Firms, and Venue
Where a case is filed and who defends it shapes how it moves. Knowing the Caddo Parish courts, their scheduling, and the defense firms that appear in them is a practical advantage in negotiation and trial preparation, and a lawyer who works those courtrooms knows which files the carriers settle and which ones they force to trial. Our Louisiana burn injury lawyers have tried these cases in the First Judicial District Court, and we handle burn cases across Northwest Louisiana, including the industrial and oilfield incidents that come out of the Red River corridor. If you are weighing your options, our Shreveport injury attorneys can review the facts, name the experts a burn case needs, and move to preserve the evidence before it is lost.
Your Shreveport Trial Team
The lawyers who work your file. Every Shreveport case is handled by the firm's own trial attorneys.
How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Burn Injury Lawyer in Shreveport?
A burn injury lawyer in Shreveport normally works on a contingency fee: the fee is a percentage of what the case brings in, and no attorney fee is owed if it brings in nothing. The consultation is free, there is no hourly rate or retainer, and the percentage is written into an agreement you sign before any work begins. Case costs are separate from the fee: filing fees, medical record charges, deposition transcripts, and the fees for the plastic surgeons, fire-origin analysts, vocational experts, and life-care planners a burn case needs. Those experts are frequently the largest line item in a catastrophic burn file. Most contingency agreements have the firm advance those costs and take them back out of the settlement or verdict, separate from the percentage fee.
Before you sign, confirm the exact percentage and whether it changes if the case has to be filed or tried, whether the firm advances case costs, whether those costs come out before or after the fee is calculated (that order changes the net number that reaches you), and what you owe for advanced costs if the case brings in nothing. Read the agreement at the kitchen table, not in the lobby, and bring your questions back before you sign.