Burn survivors in Lakewood and Jefferson County face years of grafts, scar care, and lost income that one insurance check will never cover. We build Life Care Plans that document every future cost and fight for full compensation. Serving Lakewood from our Denver office. No fee unless we win.
No fee unless we winIt's More Than Money.
CGH Injury Lawyers represents burn survivors in Lakewood and across Jefferson County, serving clients from our Denver office at 2701 Lawrence St. We build the medical and financial proof that captures the full lifetime cost of your injury, from emergency surgery through graft revisions and scar management years from now. You pay nothing unless we win.
Burn injuries happen in apartment buildings, on job sites, in car crashes, and from defective products. Every source points to a different responsible party, and Colorado law gives you a path to hold each one accountable.
Lakewood has a dense rental market. When a landlord fails to install smoke detectors, maintains defective wiring, or supplies a malfunctioning water heater or appliance, tenants who suffer burns can hold the landlord accountable under the Colorado Premises Liability Act (C.R.S. 13-21-115). Tenants are invitees who receive the highest duty of care.
Workers compensation covers immediate medical care but caps your total wage recovery and bars non-economic damages. When a contractor, equipment manufacturer, or property owner other than your direct employer caused the burn, a third-party claim lets you pursue full lost wages, pain and suffering, and permanent impairment beyond what workers comp allows.
Fuel fires and electrical burns from vehicle collisions on Wadsworth Boulevard, 6th Avenue, and West Colfax Avenue are among the most severe injuries we handle. When a negligent driver causes a crash that ignites a fire, your burn injury claim stacks on top of the underlying collision claim.
Colorado follows strict liability for defective products. You do not have to prove a manufacturer was negligent, only that the product was defective, the defect caused your injury, and you used the product as intended. Space heaters, lithium-ion batteries, gas appliances, and industrial machinery are common culprits.
Three overlapping legal frameworks govern most Lakewood burn claims. Understanding which one applies to your situation is the first strategic decision in your case.
Under the Colorado Premises Liability Act, property owners owe a duty of care to lawful visitors. Tenants and customers are invitees who receive the highest protection. When a landlord provides a defective appliance, lets electrical systems deteriorate, or fails to install required smoke detectors, the Premises Liability Act is the legal pathway for the burn survivor.
Colorado uses a modified comparative negligence rule. You can recover damages as long as your share of fault is less than 50 percent, and your award is reduced by your percentage of fault. If a Lakewood landlord failed to maintain smoke detectors but you left food unattended on a stove, both parties may share fault and you can still recover the majority of your damages. Insurance adjusters routinely inflate the injured person's share of fault to reduce payouts. An attorney can challenge that assessment with the evidence.
Colorado caps non-economic damages such as pain and suffering at $1.5 million for claims accruing on or after January 1, 2025, with inflation adjustments starting in 2028. Two critical categories fall outside that cap entirely. First, compensatory damages for physical impairment or disfigurement are not capped under C.R.S. 13-21-102.5(5). Second, economic damages such as medical bills, lost wages, and Life Care Plan costs are never capped. In a serious burn case, these uncapped categories often represent the bulk of the recovery, which is why a detailed Life Care Plan is essential.
The deadline to file a personal injury lawsuit in Colorado is generally two years from the date of the burn (C.R.S. 13-80-102). For a minor, the clock is paused until the child turns 18. The discovery rule can extend the deadline in limited circumstances where the injury was not immediately apparent. Do not rely on a deadline you have not confirmed with an attorney, because missing it permanently bars your claim.
A Lakewood burn injury case lives in Jefferson County. The trauma center that treated you, the courthouse where your case may be filed, and the roads where vehicle fires occur are all specific to this community. Here is the ground we work on.
Trauma Care
St. Anthony Hospital at 11600 W 2nd Pl is a Level I Trauma Center designated by the State of Colorado Department of Health. It is Lakewood's primary emergency hub for life-threatening injuries including severe burns. The medical records generated there, from emergency fluid resuscitation through surgical debridement and skin grafting, become the documentary foundation of your damages claim. We work with those records from day one.
Courthouse
Personal injury cases arising in Lakewood are filed in Jefferson Combined Court (1st Judicial District), located at 100 Jefferson County Parkway, Golden, CO 80401. Jefferson County cases follow Jefferson County civil procedure and draw from a Jefferson County jury pool. We file and litigate cases in that courthouse directly.
High-Risk Roads
West Colfax Avenue (US 40) recorded 820 total crashes in a 1.5-mile segment from 2015 to 2019, including 283 injuries and 6 fatalities, making it a high-priority safety corridor identified by Lakewood PD. Wadsworth Boulevard (SH 121) has documented fatal pedestrian crashes at S Wadsworth Blvd & W Mansfield Pkwy (May 2025) and S Wadsworth Blvd & W Eastman Pl (November 2025), with an active CDOT interchange reconstruction at US 6 and Wadsworth. A sharp curve on 6th Avenue (US 6) near the Sheridan exit has a documented history of 8 or more crashes including one fatality, with CDOT confirming remediation measures. Vehicle crashes on these corridors are a known burn injury risk, and the identity of every negligent party matters when we build your claim.
Local Hazards
Lakewood is Colorado's fifth-most-populous city with 155,984 residents. The City of Lakewood recorded dozens of crashes on the first day of the December 2021 snow event alone, and notes that not all roads are plowed. Major commercial generators including Colorado Mills, Belmar at Wadsworth and Alameda, and the Federal Center compound daily commuter loads on already congested corridors. Higher vehicle density and unpredictable winter road conditions together increase the risk of collisions that cause fuel fires and burn injuries.
We do not publish burn injury settlement figures, because every case depends on the degree of the burn, the body surface area affected, the victim's age and occupation, and the defendant's share of fault. A number on a page tells you nothing about your case. What we offer is the work.
The Framework
We connect the medical classification of your burn to the legal strategy that fits it. The degree of the burn drives the Life Care Plan, and the Life Care Plan drives the settlement demand.
Life Care Plans
Insurance companies focus on the emergency room bill and the first surgery. They do not volunteer to pay for the graft revision you will need years from now, the scar management, the psychological counseling, or the lost earning capacity when scarred hands can no longer perform your trade. We partner with medical economists, burn surgeons, and vocational experts to calculate the present value of all future care and put it in front of every responsible party.
Jefferson County
Jefferson Combined Court at 100 Jefferson County Parkway is where your case lives. We file and litigate there directly, without hand-offs.
Honest Case Review
If the facts of your situation fall squarely within a statutory defense or the evidence does not support a viable claim, we will tell you so in the free consultation rather than sign you up and let the case stall. We do not take every inquiry that comes through the door.
Trial-Ready
Managing Partner Kevin Cheney is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates and has tried over 25 cases to verdict. When attorneys are genuinely ready to try a case in Jefferson Combined Court, insurers respond to a demand differently than they do when the other side is bluffing. CGH was founded in 2016, formerly Cheney Galluzzi & Howard. Every Lakewood burn case is handled by a licensed Colorado attorney who fronts all costs and collects only if you recover.
Bilingual
Spanish-speaking staff and attorneys serve Lakewood's Spanish-speaking community.
Take care of your health first, then protect the evidence before it disappears. Here is the path we walk with every Lakewood burn client.
St. Anthony Hospital at 11600 W 2nd Pl is Lakewood's Level I Trauma Center and the appropriate destination for serious burns. Even a burn that appears minor can carry life-threatening infection risk. Get examined and document every treatment from the emergency phase forward.
Photograph the hazard that caused the burn, your injuries, and the surrounding area. Preserve any defective product or clothing. If a vehicle was involved, do not allow it to be repaired or destroyed before inspection.
Report the incident to the appropriate authority: the property manager for an apartment fire, the employer for a workplace burn, law enforcement for a vehicle crash. A written incident report creates a contemporaneous record that is difficult for a defendant to deny later.
Adjusters call quickly. Anything you say becomes part of their file and can be used to minimize your claim. Speak with an attorney before giving any statement. Call (303) 209-9395.
We preserve evidence, retain fire-origin experts and burn-care specialists, gather maintenance and code-violation records, and partner with medical economists to calculate the present value of every future cost, from graft revisions to lost earning capacity.
Most cases settle when the insurer faces a fully documented Life Care Plan and trial-ready counsel. When an insurer refuses a fair resolution, we file in Jefferson Combined Court at 100 Jefferson County Parkway, Golden, and try your case.
Colorado law recognizes two broad categories of damages. Understanding where the caps apply and where they do not is the difference between a settlement that covers your emergency bills and one that covers your lifetime.
Colorado caps non-economic damages such as pain and suffering at $1.5 million for claims accruing on or after January 1, 2025 (C.R.S. 13-21-102.5), with inflation adjustments starting in 2028. But two categories are not capped at all: economic damages such as medical bills and lost wages, and compensatory damages for physical impairment or disfigurement (C.R.S. 13-21-102.5(5)). In a third- or fourth-degree burn case, the uncapped categories often make up the largest portion of the recovery, which is exactly why a Life Care Plan that documents every future cost is the most important document in the file.
Insurers deploy predictable defenses to minimize or deny burn injury claims. Knowing what each argument requires under Colorado law is how we keep a valid claim alive.
Adjusters inflate your share of fault to reduce the payout. Under Colorado's modified comparative negligence rule (C.R.S. 13-21-111), you can still recover damages as long as your share of fault is less than 50 percent, and your award is reduced only by your actual percentage of fault. We challenge inflated fault assessments with fire-origin analysis, maintenance records, and expert testimony.
Insurers settle based on current bills and ignore the graft revision five years from now, the scar management, the counseling, and the lost earning capacity. A Life Care Plan prepared by a medical economist removes their ability to pretend those future costs do not exist. We build that plan before the demand letter goes out.
Under the Colorado Premises Liability Act (C.R.S. 13-21-115), the duty owed depends on the victim's status. Tenants and customers are invitees who receive the highest duty of care. A landlord cannot escape liability simply by posting a sign after the fact or claiming a tenant was in a common area they had no right to use.
Workers compensation is the exclusive remedy against your direct employer for injuries on the job. But when a contractor, equipment manufacturer, subcontractor, or property owner other than your employer contributed to the burn, a third-party personal injury claim is separate from workers comp and lets you pursue full lost wages, pain and suffering, and impairment damages that workers comp does not cover.
The source of the money depends on how the burn happened. We identify and pursue every available coverage source so that no policy goes unclaimed.
The deadline to file a personal injury lawsuit in Colorado is generally two years from the date of the burn (C.R.S. 13-80-102). If the victim is a minor, the clock is paused until the child turns 18. If the burn was caused by a government entity, a written notice of claim must be filed within 182 days of discovering the injury under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act (C.R.S. 24-10-109), which is a jurisdictional prerequisite that bars the claim entirely if missed. Do not assume any deadline applies to your case without confirming it with an attorney.
Personal injury cases arising in Lakewood are filed in Jefferson Combined Court (1st Judicial District), located at 100 Jefferson County Parkway, Golden, CO 80401. Jefferson County cases follow Jefferson County civil procedure and draw from a Jefferson County jury pool. We file and litigate cases in that courthouse directly, without referring your case to another firm.
Partially. Colorado caps non-economic damages such as pain and suffering at $1.5 million for claims accruing on or after January 1, 2025 (C.R.S. 13-21-102.5), with inflation adjustments starting in 2028. Two categories are not capped at all: economic damages such as medical bills and lost wages, and compensatory damages for physical impairment or disfigurement (C.R.S. 13-21-102.5(5)). In a serious burn case those uncapped categories are typically the largest part of the recovery.
Colorado follows a modified comparative negligence rule (C.R.S. 13-21-111). You can recover damages as long as your share of fault is less than 50 percent, and your award is reduced by your actual percentage of fault. If you are 50 percent or more at fault, you recover nothing. Insurance adjusters routinely inflate the injured person's share of fault to reduce payouts. An attorney challenges that assessment with evidence, not just argument.
St. Anthony Hospital at 11600 W 2nd Pl in Lakewood is a Level I Trauma Center designated by the State of Colorado Department of Health. It is the primary emergency facility for life-threatening injuries in the area. The medical records from St. Anthony document the full scope of your injuries and become the foundation of your damages claim. Preserve every record, from the ambulance report through every follow-up visit.
Yes, in many circumstances. Under the Colorado Premises Liability Act (C.R.S. 13-21-115), tenants are invitees who receive the highest duty of care. When a landlord supplies a defective appliance, lets electrical systems deteriorate, or fails to install required smoke detectors and a burn results, the landlord can be held liable. The key elements are the landlord's knowledge of the hazard, a failure to address it, and a causal connection to your burn.
Generally yes. Workers compensation is the exclusive remedy against your direct employer, meaning you cannot sue your employer for negligence. But when an equipment manufacturer, subcontractor, or property owner whose negligence contributed to your burn is not your direct employer, a separate third-party personal injury claim is available. Colorado follows strict liability for defective products: you do not need to prove the manufacturer was negligent, only that the product was defective, the defect caused your injury, and you used the product as intended. A third-party claim lets you pursue full lost wages, pain and suffering, and permanent impairment damages that workers comp does not provide.
CGH Injury Lawyers serves Lakewood and Jefferson County from our Denver office at 2701 Lawrence St., Suite 201, Denver, CO 80205. We do not have a separate Lakewood office, but we handle Jefferson Combined Court cases in Golden directly and meet with Lakewood clients at our Denver location or, when necessary, at another convenient location. Call us at (303) 209-9395 to schedule a free consultation.
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Free consultation. No fee unless we win. Serving Lakewood and Jefferson County from our Denver office.
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