Scars and Disfigurement Lawyers in Durham, NC

Key Takeaways

• Permanent scars and disfigurement caused by someone else’s negligence may qualify for financial compensation.
• Common causes include car accidents, dog bites, unsafe property conditions, defective products, and medical negligence.
• Compensation may cover medical expenses, reconstructive surgery, lost income, pain and suffering, emotional distress, and permanent disfigurement.
• Strong evidence—such as medical records, photos, witness statements, and expert opinions—is often essential to proving liability.
• A Durham scarring and disfigurement lawyer can negotiate with insurers, build your case, and pursue maximum compensation.
• Kornbluth Ginsberg offers free consultations to help injury victims understand their legal rights and options.

The Life-Changing Impact of Scarring and Disfigurement

Scarring and disfigurement are among the most debilitating and visible injuries that can result from a serious accident. They can affect everything from a patient’s mobility and physical comfort to their emotional well-being and self-conception.

Depending on the parts of the body affected, scarring and disfigurement can make it difficult to perform certain jobs, putting a patient’s financial security at risk – even as they continue to cost money to treat through therapy and plastic surgery.

Whether a patient’s scarring or disfigurement resulted from a severe car accident, burns caused by a defective product, medical errors, or some other incident, if someone else’s legal fault caused them, the patient can seek compensation for the many ways their life has been harmed as a result.

The experienced personal injury attorneys at Kornbluth Ginsberg Law Group, P.A., represent individuals who are left with scars and disfigurement due to the negligent actions of others. We want to help you seek maximum compensation for your losses through a scarring and disfigurement claim.

Contact our law firm now or call us 24/7 at 919-980-9895 for a free consultation about your legal options. Our Durham office is conveniently located at 3400 Croasdaile Drive, Suite 300. We are here to help you.

Get directions to our Durham Scarring and Disfigurement Law Firm

Facial Injuries and Other Types of Disfigurement

Some of the most common types of facial injuries and disfigurement associated with accidents include:

• Lacerations, soft tissue injuries, and avulsions – Cuts, tears, punctures, or loss of skin and soft tissue can result in severe wounds and lasting scars.
• Scarring and skin deformities – Conditions like cicatrix, hypertrophic scars, and keloids can result in permanent changes to the skin after injury, surgery, burns, or disease. Such conditions commonly involve permanent scarring that can be either raised or depressed from the skin surface, often co-occurring with discoloration.
• Fractures and skeletal deformities – Maxillofacial fractures and craniofacial deformities involve broken or misshapen facial bones such as the jaw, cheekbones, nose, or eye sockets, which can alter facial structure.
• Burn-related injuries – Thermal burns, chemical burns, and radiation burns can result in a particular type of scarring called burn contracture, a tightening of skin, and altered appearance.
• Loss of facial tissue or facial features – These injuries include everything from tissue loss to partial amputation of structures such as the nose, ear, eyelid, lip, or sections of the face. They can result from trauma, disease, or surgery. Multiple reconstructive surgeries may be necessary to address appearance issues.
• Eye and vision-related disfigurement – Ocular trauma, enucleation, and orbital deformity are injuries affecting the eye or surrounding structures. They can involve the loss of an eye, sunken or protruding eye, or eyelid deformities.
• Neurologic and functional facial deformities – Facial nerve palsy or facial paralysis can result from damage to facial nerves, causing drooping, asymmetry, impaired facial expression, or difficulty speaking and eating.

How Severe Scarring and Disfigurement Can Happen Due to Negligence

Most personal injury cases are based on a legal concept called negligence, which essentially means carelessness. Others are based on the concept of recklessness, which is a conscious indifference to the possibility that one’s actions could cause harm to someone else.

Here are a few scenarios where negligence or recklessness could cause another person to suffer visible scarring and disfigurement:

• Motor vehicle accidents – A speeding driver runs a red light and slams into a vehicle passing through the intersection. The force of the crash causes the other driver’s head to slam into their steering wheel, badly injuring their nose and mouth.
• Dog bites – The owner of a dog with a history of aggression lets the animal roam off-leash. It gets out of the yard and attacks a passerby, mauling that person’s face and hands.
• Premises liability – A property owner neglects to replace the broken light fixture in a stairwell. A customer loses their footing in the dark and topples down the stairs, cracking their head against the banister and the steps on the way down.

Compensation Available for Scarring and Disfigurement Injuries

If someone else caused you to suffer a severe injury that resulted in permanent scarring and disfigurement, they could owe you compensation for the many personal and financial harms you have suffered as a consequence of your life-changing injuries.

The compensation could include money for your economic and non-economic damages, such as:

• Past medical bills, including for emergency treatment, hospitalization, surgery, wound care, dental treatment, medications, and rehabilitation
• Anticipated future medical costs, including for reconstructive surgery, scar revision, skin grafts, prosthetics, vision treatment, and ongoing specialist care
• Lost wages, if you missed work due to the injury, the required medical treatments, and ongoing effects of the initial injury
• Pain and suffering, or the discomfort caused by lacerations, fractures, burns, nerve damage, and surgeries
• Permanent disfigurement caused by lasting scars, facial asymmetry, tissue loss, or other visible alterations to appearance
• Emotional distress, including the psychological impacts, such as anxiety, depression, embarrassment, loss of self-confidence, social withdrawal, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), arising from the emotional impact of the underlying accident and its aftermath
• Loss of enjoyment of life caused by the reduced ability to participate in social, recreational, romantic, and professional activities because of physical limitations or altered appearance

How Liability Is Proven in a Scarring or Disfigurement Case

To establish that someone else caused a victim’s scarring or disfigurement, a scar injury lawyer will attempt to establish that the other party:

• Had a responsibility to act with reasonable care,
• Violated that responsibility in some way, and
• The violation directly led to the victim’s scarring or disfigurement.

In other words, the victim would not have been injured but for the negligent actions of the at-fault party.

Proving that will require considerable evidence, such as:

Why Legal Representation Matters After a Permanent Injury

A disfigurement lawyer is an important ally in the aftermath of a permanent injury. Insurance companies may try to take advantage of a claimant who does not have legal representation. Adjusters might dispute the claimant’s version of events, downplay the nature or extent of their injuries, or pressure them into accepting a settlement offer before they know the true value of their claim.

You can protect yourself from insurance company tactics by working with our experienced disfigurement injury lawyers who can:

• Investigate the accident to determine who is at fault for what happened
• Identify relevant insurance policies and determine the extent of available coverage
• Work with experts to analyze the long-term consequences of your permanent injuries and calculate fair compensation
• Negotiate with insurance companies for a settlement, protecting you from pressure tactics or attempts to downplay your injuries
• Litigate at trial if the insurance company refuses to make a reasonable settlement offer

While our attorneys deal with the legal aspects of the case, you can focus on the medical and personal aspects of your injuries.

Contact Our Durham Scarring and Disfigurement Lawyers Today

Have you been badly hurt in an accident in Durham or elsewhere in North Carolina? Contact a disfigurement injury attorney at Kornbluth Ginsberg right away.

We will explain your legal options in scarring cases during a free consultation and discuss what we can do to pursue the full compensation you deserve for your life-altering injuries.