If you or your child was burned by scalding water from a shower, a tub faucet or a sink in a Los Angeles apartment, hotel or rental, the burn was almost certainly preventable, and the building is almost certainly responsible. California’s plumbing code has required temperature controls on showers and tubs for decades, water heater manufacturers and safety agencies set the safe delivery temperature at 120 degrees, and landlords and innkeepers have a duty to maintain the systems that deliver hot water. A scald serious enough to need treatment means one of those protections failed. Here is what the rules are, who is responsible, how burns are classified and treated, and what to do in the first week.
How quickly hot water burns
Water at 120 degrees Fahrenheit takes several minutes of contact to cause a serious burn in an adult. At 130 degrees, it takes about 30 seconds. At 140 degrees, about five seconds. At 150 degrees, under two seconds. Children, older adults and people with limited mobility or sensation burn faster and cannot get out of the way as quickly, which is why most serious scalds are children in bathtubs and elderly tenants in showers. A water heater left at its factory setting, or turned up by a maintenance worker to satisfy a complaint about lukewarm showers in a large building, can deliver water at 140 degrees or more to every unit.
The rules the building had to follow
California’s Plumbing Code, which the City of Los Angeles adopts and enforces, requires that shower and tub-shower combination valves be pressure-balancing or thermostatic mixing valves set to deliver water no hotter than 120 degrees, and that tub spouts and bidets be limited the same way. These requirements have been in the code since the 1990s for new construction and for replacement of the valves, so an older building that has ever renovated a bathroom or replaced a shower valve should have them. Water heater manufacturers ship units with a 120-degree recommendation and warnings against higher settings, and Cal/OSHA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission publish the same figure.
A landlord’s habitability obligations under Civil Code section 1941.1 include hot water and plumbing in good working order; a system that delivers dangerously hot water is not in good working order. Hotels owe guests the ordinary duty of care under Civil Code section 1714, and the industry’s own standards call for anti-scald valves and regular temperature checks at the tap.
Who is responsible
The owner of the building is the primary defendant. For an apartment, that is the landlord and, if there is one, the management company that controls maintenance. For a hotel, it is the hotel’s owner and operator, which are often different companies under a franchise or management agreement; the brand name on the sign may not be the owner. Both are named until the agreements are produced.
Others can share responsibility. A plumber or contractor who installed a shower valve without a working temperature limit, or who replaced a water heater and set it too high. The manufacturer of a mixing valve that failed. A property manager who received complaints about water temperature and did nothing. In a case where a maintenance worker adjusted the water heater, his employer is responsible for what he did.
Proof
The water temperature. Measured at the tap as soon as possible, before anyone adjusts the heater. A digital thermometer under the running hot water, photographed with the reading and the time, is the single most important piece of evidence in a scald case. If you cannot do it yourself, ask a neighbor or have someone do it the same day.
The water heater. Its make, model, thermostat setting and location. Photograph the dial. In a large building, the central boiler’s settings and maintenance log.
The valve. Whether the shower had a pressure-balancing or thermostatic valve, and whether its limit stop was set. A plumber can inspect this; the building should not be allowed to replace the valve before it is documented.
The complaint history. Prior complaints about water temperature from you or other tenants or guests, and the building’s maintenance records. In an apartment, the Los Angeles Housing Department’s inspection and complaint file for the building is a public record.
Medical records that describe the mechanism and the burn depth and extent.
A written preservation demand to the owner and manager goes out immediately: water heater, valve, settings, maintenance records, complaints, and any work orders in the weeks before the burn.
The burns, and treatment in the West San Fernando Valley
Burns are classified by depth. Superficial burns affect the outer layer of skin and heal in days. Partial-thickness burns blister, are intensely painful and can scar; deep partial-thickness burns often need grafting. Full-thickness burns destroy the full depth of skin, may not be painful at the site because the nerves are destroyed, and require surgery. Scald burns in children are frequently deep partial-thickness because a child’s skin is thin and the child cannot escape.
Serious burns in this part of Los Angeles are typically treated at the Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital, which is a dedicated burn unit a few minutes from Chatsworth and Northridge, or at the burn centers at LAC+USC or Torrance Memorial for the most severe cases. Burn treatment is long: debridement, dressing changes, grafting, pressure garments, physical therapy to prevent contractures, and often reconstructive surgery years later. Children may need repeat surgeries as they grow because grafted skin does not stretch. All of this is part of the claim, and a life care planner is used to project it.
What these cases are worth
Scald cases involving grafting, permanent scarring, or a child are among the most serious premises cases there are. The damages include every past and future medical expense, lost earnings for an adult or a parent who stops working to care for a burned child, and compensation for the pain, the scarring and the permanent change to the person’s life. Apartment owners and hotel operators carry commercial liability policies, often with umbrella coverage above them, and those policies are identified early.
Deadlines
Two years from the injury under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 for a private landlord or hotel. For a child, the clock generally does not start until the child turns 18, but evidence does not wait, and the claim should be made now. If the housing is owned by a public housing authority, a government claim must be filed within six months.
Key points
Water hotter than 120 degrees at the tap is dangerous, and California’s plumbing code requires shower and tub valves that limit delivery to 120. A serious scald means a protection failed.
The building owner and manager are responsible; a plumber, a valve manufacturer or a hotel operator may share it.
Measure and photograph the water temperature at the tap the same day, and photograph the water heater’s setting before anyone touches it.
Burn treatment is long and often lifelong for children. The claim includes all of it.
Two years for adults; a child’s deadline is extended, but the evidence must be secured now.
Frequently asked questions
The landlord turned the water heater down right after the burn. Does that hurt my case? No. Repairs made after an injury are not admissible to prove fault, but the fact that the temperature could be and was turned down shows the hazard was controllable, and the prior setting can be proven through the maintenance worker, the records and the tenants who noticed the change.
My toddler turned on the hot tap. Is that our fault? A toddler cannot be negligent in California law, and the code requires valves that limit temperature precisely because children turn on taps. Whether a parent’s supervision is raised as comparative fault depends on the facts, and it does not reduce the child’s own claim.
We were staying at a hotel. Who do we claim against? The hotel’s owner and its management company, which are identified from the franchise and management agreements. The brand on the sign is frequently neither.
Do I need a lawyer for a burn that healed in a few weeks? A burn that healed fully without scarring is a smaller claim, but any burn that blistered deserves at least a consultation, because scarring and pigment change often become apparent only months later.
Manoukian Law Firm, P.C., Chatsworth, California. Free consultation. No fee unless we win. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
