A burn from a vacation cabin, a ranch job, or a crash in La Plata County can bring months of dressing changes, follow-up surgery, and calls from adjusters. CGH Injury Lawyers represents Durango burn survivors from our Denver office.
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You booked a cabin near Durango for a few quiet days, and a propane heater, a gas fireplace, or a hot water tap that hadn't been checked left you or your child with a serious burn.
The trip is over, and the questions came home with you: who owned that place, who was supposed to maintain it, and whether a Durango burn injury lawyer can help when the property belongs to a stranger.
When you'd like to talk it over with a person, call CGH Injury Lawyers at (303) 209-9395, or describe what happened on our contact page. Either way, you can tell us about the burn in your own words.
Depending on what went wrong, a burn claim may be against a cabin owner, a driver, a manufacturer, or another company.
Short-term rentals and long-term leases both involve someone answerable for the property's condition. If you booked through a rental website, the confirmation and your messages with the host may be the first clues to who owns the place and who manages it.
A faulty gas fireplace, an overheated water heater, or bare wiring can cause burns, and Colorado's Premises Liability Act (C.R.S. 13-21-115) reaches the landlord or owner responsible for that condition.
Whether you stayed as a paying guest or as the owner's friend can change what you need to prove, and the court makes that call. An invitee can generally recover for dangers the owner actually knew about or should have known about, while a licensee, such as a social guest, generally has to show the owner actually knew.
A collision can end in a vehicle fire or in electrical or chemical burns. A crash burn can be part of a claim against a driver whose negligence caused the crash, and vehicle claims carry their own filing period.
A camp stove, a space heater, or a lithium battery pack can cause deep burns when something is wrong with it. Colorado law lets an injured person bring a product claim under more than one theory, including negligence and strict liability (C.R.S. 13-21-401(2)). A strict liability case asks two things: was the product defective, and did that defect cause your burn?
Maybe the burn happened on a construction site, in a restaurant kitchen, or at a ranch. Workers' compensation may pay benefits for a job burn, and under C.R.S. 8-41-102 it is generally the only claim against your own employer.
When a property owner who isn't your employer, or the maker of a piece of equipment, caused the burn, Colorado also allows a claim against that outside party for losses the workers' compensation system doesn't pay (C.R.S. 8-41-203(1)(a)).
For the two-year and three-year periods, the clock generally doesn't start until the injury and its cause are both known to you or would have been with reasonable diligence (C.R.S. 13-80-108(1)). Different rules can affect the timing when the person burned is a child. Your correct date depends on who may be responsible and how the burn happened, so have a lawyer confirm it.
Under the Premises Liability Act, a court sorts the injured person into one of three groups: trespasser, licensee, or invitee. An invitee is on the land for business that matters to both sides, or because the owner signaled that the public was welcome. Invitees get the most protection. They can recover when the owner unreasonably failed to take reasonable care against a danger the owner either knew of or should have known of, under subsection (4)(c)(I) of C.R.S. 13-21-115.
A social guest counts as a licensee, and licensees need proof, in general, that the owner was actually aware of the danger (C.R.S. 13-21-115(4)(b)). That same actual knowledge is required of an invitee hurt on land classified for property tax purposes as agricultural or vacant, a rule found in subsection (4)(c)(II) of the statute. Which group you fit is a question the court answers from the evidence (C.R.S. 13-21-115(6)).
In a negligence claim, Colorado's comparative negligence statute (C.R.S. 13-21-111) lets you still recover when your share of the fault is smaller than the defendant's, though your award drops by your percentage. A share equal to or larger than the defendant's means no recovery.
Picture a jury that finds you 30 percent responsible for a fire because a pan was left on the cabin stove, and the owner 70 percent responsible because the smoke detector had no battery. Your damages would be reduced by 30 percent.
Colorado limits noneconomic damages, the category that covers losses like pain, emotional stress, and a diminished quality of life, to $1.5 million for claims arising on or after January 1, 2025 (C.R.S. 13-21-102.5). Different provisions govern medical malpractice and wrongful death claims, and the dollar figure is adjusted for inflation starting January 1, 2028.
Because the noneconomic limit applies to only some damages, economic losses such as treatment costs and missed paychecks fall outside it (C.R.S. 13-21-102.5(3)). Subsection (5) of the same statute says the section can't be read to limit "the recovery of compensatory damages for physical impairment or disfigurement."
The courthouse
The La Plata County Courthouse is at 1060 East Second Ave, Suite 106, Durango, CO 81301. Durango is the county seat of La Plata County, which belongs to the 6th Judicial District along with Archuleta and San Juan counties. A lawsuit over a Durango burn might be filed in La Plata County, but where a lawsuit is filed depends on the facts.
Hospital care
Mercy Hospital, part of CommonSpirit Health, is at 1010 Three Springs Blvd in Durango. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's list shows it as a Level III trauma facility. Ask for copies of your emergency and inpatient records early, since they can show what the burn looked like from the first day.
The fire district
The Durango Fire Protection District, which goes by Durango Fire & Rescue, has 16 fire stations within its 325 square mile district boundaries. The district's FAQ says it serves the City of Durango under a voter-approved multi-year contract. Its open records page has a request form for incident reports, and a report may help show what crews found when they arrived.
Our office
CGH Injury Lawyers works from 2701 Lawrence St., Suite 201, Denver, CO 80205, and serves Durango clients from there.
We don't publish burn settlement figures. A burn claim's value comes from facts particular to you: the burn's depth and size, where on your body it landed, and how it has changed your work and daily routine.
In MedlinePlus's terms, burn depth runs from superficial to partial-thickness to full-thickness, and it adds, "A burn's size can also be determined based on the total body surface area (TBSA) they cover." The same page warns, "Burns on the face, hands, feet, and genitals can be particularly serious."
Future grafts, scar management, therapy, and lost earning ability may belong in the claim along with the bills you already have. Burn surgeons, vocational experts, and medical economists help us prepare a Life Care Plan, a written projection of what that future care will cost.
CGH Injury Lawyers, formerly Cheney Galluzzi & Howard, was founded in Denver in 2016. Managing Partner Kevin Cheney is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). Whether a case settles or not, the firm prepares each case as if it will be tried.
A vacation property can be owned by one person, managed by another, and serviced by a third. Deeds, booking records, management agreements, and repair invoices can help show who was in charge of the fireplace, heater, or water heater that burned you and who knew what about it before your stay.
If we don't think Colorado law or the facts support a claim, we'll say that plainly.
To speak with us in Spanish, call (303) 835-9177.
MedlinePlus warns, "The most serious burns can be painless," and also says, "Major burns need urgent medical care." Call 911 in an emergency.
If you're still at the rental, take pictures of the heater, fireplace, wiring, or water heater involved, and of any missing smoke detector. Save the booking confirmation and your messages with the host or manager.
Keep a failed stove, battery, or appliance, along with burned clothing. After a crash, ask the tow yard or insurer to leave the vehicle as it is until someone can examine it.
Notify the property owner or manager, your employer, or law enforcement, whichever fits what happened, and keep a copy.
Before you give a recorded statement to an insurance company, you can ask to talk with a lawyer first. That goes for a call from the cabin owner's carrier as much as one from a driver's insurer, and our number is (303) 209-9395.
Keep medical bills, pharmacy receipts, pay stubs showing missed work, and a short daily note on pain, sleep, and the things you can't do yet.
What you may recover depends on your case, but Colorado law recognizes several types of loss.
Disfigurement and physical impairment damages fall outside the non-economic limit in C.R.S. 13-21-102.5, which its subsection (5) makes clear.
Public entities have their own ceilings on what a claimant can recover, and every fourth year Colorado's Secretary of State recalculates those amounts for inflation (C.R.S. 24-10-114).
An adjuster may argue that you misused the fireplace or set something too close to a heater. If a jury agreed you were partly to blame, your damages would shrink by that percentage, and a share as large as or larger than the owner's would end the claim (C.R.S. 13-21-111). We meet those arguments with maintenance records, expert testimony, and fire origin analysis.
A quick offer tied to today's bills may leave out the grafts and therapy you may need years from now. A Life Care Plan puts those later costs in writing.
Repair requests, earlier guest complaints, and inspection records can show what an owner knew. Whether knowledge the owner should have had also counts depends on your status, which the court decides (C.R.S. 13-21-115).
Two years is the general window for a tort claim in Colorado (C.R.S. 13-80-102), counted in general from when you knew, or reasonably should have known, that you were hurt and what the burn came from. A claim involving a government body has its own, much shorter notice step, so raise that possibility with a lawyer right away (C.R.S. 24-10-109). A lawyer should confirm the date for your situation.
La Plata County's court is the La Plata County Courthouse, at 1060 East Second Ave, Suite 106, in Durango, and the county is part of the 6th Judicial District. Where a lawsuit is filed depends on the facts.
Scarring may be compensated as disfigurement, and C.R.S. 13-21-102.5(5) says that section doesn't limit compensatory damages for physical impairment or disfigurement. The $1.5 million ceiling in the same statute reaches noneconomic damages like pain and suffering for claims arising on or after January 1, 2025, with separate treatment for medical malpractice and wrongful death. Medical costs and lost income aren't noneconomic damages, so that ceiling doesn't cap them. Claims against a government body have their own maximum amounts (C.R.S. 24-10-114).
No. Our office is at 2701 Lawrence St., Suite 201, Denver, CO 80205. You can reach us at (303) 209-9395.
It can. A social guest counts as a licensee under Colorado's premises statute, so you'd generally need to show your friend knew about the hazard before it burned you (C.R.S. 13-21-115(4)(b)). The court settles your status from the facts. If a propane grill or another product failed, its manufacturer may also be responsible.
Possibly. Your own employer is generally reachable only through workers' compensation (C.R.S. 8-41-102). A different company, such as the manufacturer of a machine that failed, may be pursued for damages above what those benefits cover (C.R.S. 8-41-203).
It may. If workers' compensation has paid benefits, its insurer may have a right to be repaid from what you recover from the outside party (C.R.S. 8-41-203). Raise this early so it's part of planning your claim.
Useful records include your medical chart from the first visit onward, photos of the burn as it heals, photos of the place and anything that failed, the product itself, any fire department incident report, written reports you made to an owner or employer, and proof of lost pay and out-of-pocket costs. Hospital notes may also describe the burn's size and depth.
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It's More Than Money.
Tell us what happened at (303) 209-9395 or through our contact page. We'll explain how Colorado law may apply and whether we see a claim.
Our Denver address is 2701 Lawrence St., Suite 201, Denver, CO 80205.
For further reading, a Colorado burn injury attorney overview covers these claims statewide. Our Denver burn injury lawyer page is another resource, and separate pages describe the work of a Durango premises liability lawyer and a Durango car accident lawyer.
Learn more on our Durango personal injury lawyers page.
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