Louisiana has the shortest personal injury statute of limitations in the nation — just one year from the date of injury. If you or a family member suffered a burn in Louisiana's petrochemical corridor, on an offshore platform, or anywhere else in the state, you must act now. The deadline is unforgiving, and it is already running.
Two ABA-verified burn centers serve Louisiana. If you were treated at either facility, your medical records are critical evidence — and you may have less time than you think to act.
Serves Baton Rouge and the River Parish industrial corridor — one of the highest concentrations of petrochemical plants in the world. Receives plant explosion, chemical burn, and refinery fire cases.
Academic medical center serving Northwest Louisiana, the Haynesville Shale oil and gas region, and the East Texas border area.
Louisiana's prescriptive period for personal injury — the civil law equivalent of a statute of limitations — is one year from the date of injury under Louisiana Civil Code article 3492. This is the shortest personal injury deadline in the United States. Most states provide 2 or 3 years. Louisiana gives you one. Miss this deadline by a single day and your claim is gone — permanently, with no second chances.
If you were burned in Louisiana, time is not on your side. Burn cases require investigation, evidence preservation, expert retention, and legal preparation. One year is not a long window when you are simultaneously recovering from serious injuries, undergoing repeated surgeries, and rebuilding your life. Contact an attorney immediately — do not wait until you feel "better" or until the anniversary of your injury is approaching.
Louisiana's workers' compensation law (La. R.S. 23:1031 et seq.) is mandatory for most employers and provides the exclusive remedy against your direct employer for covered workplace injuries. Workers' comp pays medical expenses and a portion of lost wages. However, it does not compensate pain and suffering, emotional distress, or the full extent of permanent disfigurement.
Critically, the exclusive remedy bar does not apply if your employer committed an intentional act — meaning the employer either desired to bring about the harmful result or was substantially certain that harm would follow from its conduct. Additionally, third-party claims against contractors, equipment manufacturers, property owners, and other non-employers are fully preserved and may provide substantially greater recovery.
Louisiana has one of the largest maritime workforces in the United States, centered on the Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and gas industry and the Mississippi River port corridor. The Jones Act (46 U.S.C. § 30104) gives seamen — those who spend a substantial portion of their work time aboard a vessel in navigation — the right to sue their employer for negligence in federal court. Jones Act claims are not subject to workers' comp exclusive remedy, and they allow recovery of pain and suffering, disfigurement, lost wages, and other damages unavailable under workers' comp.
Dock workers, port workers, shipbuilders, and ship repair workers who do not qualify as "seamen" under the Jones Act may still be covered under the federal Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq.). LHWCA provides federal workers' comp benefits with significantly higher wage replacement rates than Louisiana state workers' comp — and also preserves third-party civil claims against vessel owners and other non-employer defendants.
Workers on fixed platforms on the Outer Continental Shelf — including production platforms, drilling rigs attached to the seabed, and similar structures — are covered under the OCSLA (43 U.S.C. § 1331 et seq.). Federal law governs the safety obligations of platform operators, and federal maritime law may supplement state law claims depending on the nature of the work and the worker's classification.
Louisiana is the only U.S. state operating under a civil law tradition derived from the Napoleonic Code rather than common law. In practice, most personal injury concepts — negligence, comparative fault, damages — function similarly to common law states, but the statutory framework and terminology differ. Louisiana's comparative fault scheme (La. Civ. Code art. 2323) assigns fault proportionally among all responsible parties, including plaintiffs. An attorney experienced in Louisiana law is essential to navigating these distinctions.
Louisiana's 1-year prescriptive period is the shortest personal injury deadline in the country. Whether you were burned at a River Road chemical plant, on an offshore platform, in a Haynesville Shale wellpad accident, or anywhere else in Louisiana — your window to file a claim is already closing. Contact an attorney today.
Confidential. No fee unless you win. Don't wait — your 1-year deadline is already running.