Alabama Burn Injury Lawyer: Your Rights After a Burn

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By Michael Shemtoub, trial attorney, Beverly Law. Updated November 2026.

What to do after a burn in Alabama

The ABA directory lists three burn centers in Alabama, none of them verified: one in Mobile and two in Birmingham, including a pediatric center at Children’s of Alabama. Verified centers in neighboring Georgia are listed below too. Ask your doctor which center fits your burn.

Because even a small share of fault can sink an Alabama claim, your own account matters. Write down where you were standing and whether anyone warned you. Keep the product or container, photograph the scene and the wound, and collect names of witnesses. Ask the business in writing to preserve its video. Do not guess or speculate in a statement to an insurer.

The Alabama State Bar runs a Lawyer Referral Service if you want to find a lawyer on your own (Alabama State Bar).

The deadline to file in Alabama

Actions for injury to the person not arising from contract must be brought within two years (Ala. Code 6-2-38(l)).

Alabama has no general discovery rule. It applies one only where the Legislature provides it, as with asbestos claims (Ala. Code 6-2-30(b)) and medical malpractice, which has two years, extended to six months from discovery, with a four-year outer limit (Ala. Code 6-5-482(a)). In toxic-exposure cases, the claim accrues when there is a manifest, present injury (Griffin v. Unocal Corp., 990 So. 2d 291 (Ala. 2008)).

Claims against government bodies run on separate clocks:

How fault works in Alabama

Alabama follows contributory negligence: if you share any fault, you can be barred from recovering at all. In Williams v. Delta International Machinery Corp., 619 So. 2d 1330 (Ala. 1993), the Alabama Supreme Court declined to abolish the doctrine.

Consider a customer burned when a gas station pump catches fire. The jury might believe the station’s equipment was mostly to blame. But if it also finds the customer 10% at fault for walking away from the nozzle, the contributory negligence rule can leave him with nothing. That is why the defense in an Alabama burn case looks hard at every choice the injured person made.

Damages and caps in Alabama

Punitive damages require clear and convincing evidence that the defendant consciously or deliberately engaged in oppression, fraud, wantonness, or malice (Ala. Code 6-11-20). Section 6-11-21 then caps them:

The amounts are CPI-adjusted every 3 years (Ala. Code 6-11-21).

Alabama has no cap on medical malpractice damages. The Alabama Supreme Court struck down the $400,000 noneconomic cap in Ala. Code 6-5-544(b) (Moore v. Mobile Infirmary Ass’n, 592 So. 2d 156 (Ala. 1991)).

Burns at work in Alabama

Workers’ compensation rights exclude all other remedies, and the employer is not civilly liable (Ala. Code 25-5-52, 25-5-53). The statute has no intentional-injury exception for the employer.

A co-employee is different. A worker may sue a co-employee, and the comp carrier, for “willful conduct,” which includes intent to injure, removing a safety guard, and intoxication (Ala. Code 25-5-11(b)-(c)). That suit has a two-year deadline (Ala. Code 6-2-38(g)).

You may also take comp and sue any party other than the employer, such as the manufacturer of a defective boiler (Ala. Code 25-5-11(a)). The employer is reimbursed from that recovery under the same section.

Burn centers in Alabama

Alabama has no ABA-verified burn center. These are the three centers the ABA lists in the state:

Source: American Burn Association, Find a Burn Center, directory checked November 2026.

In neighboring Georgia, the ABA lists these verified centers. The ABA directory showed no verified burn center in Mississippi, the other neighbor state.

Source: American Burn Association, Find a Burn Center, directory checked November 2026.

Who may be liable for a burn

Businesses that control heat or fuel are the usual defendants. A restaurant decides how hot it serves coffee, and the ABA’s scald table shows 155°F water can cause a third-degree burn in one second (ABA scald guide). A landlord answers for neglected gas appliances. Contractors on a job site, product makers, utilities and propane dealers can each carry part of the blame.

How Beverly Law helps in Alabama

Beverly Law is a California firm. Its attorneys are licensed in California and Washington. For burn injuries in Alabama, the firm works with attorneys licensed in Alabama through its referral network, and a free case review connects you with an Alabama-licensed burn injury attorney, usually within one business day.

Related pages

• Burn injury lawyer · Burn injury law by state · Burn centers · Georgia burn injury lawyer · Mississippi burn injury lawyer

This page is general information about Alabama law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws change; a lawyer licensed in Alabama can tell you how they apply to your case.

Common questions

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Important: Attorney Advertising. This page is general information, not legal or medical advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Beverly Law is a California firm whose attorneys are licensed in California and Washington; for injuries in other states it works with attorneys licensed there through its referral network. Last reviewed: November 6, 2026.