Scarring and Disfigurement Damages in Colorado

Of everything in a burn file, scarring is the part people are least willing to talk about and the part that most often stays with them. It is also treated differently under Colorado law than the medical bills, and it is worth understanding why.

A separate category of damages

Colorado generally recognizes physical impairment and disfigurement as a separate category of compensatory damages, and the general noneconomic-damages cap does not limit those damages (C.R.S. § 13-21-102.5(5): "Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit the recovery of compensatory damages for physical impairment or disfigurement."). Special statutory regimes may apply different rules. It is not folded into your medical expenses and it is not the same as pain and suffering. The reasoning is straightforward: the surgery bill measures what it cost to treat you, and pain measures what you went through. Neither one measures what it is like to walk into a room for the next forty years with a visible mark you did not choose.

Practically, that means a burn case can carry meaningful value even where the medical bills are moderate, if the permanent visible result is significant.

How a Colorado jury is asked to decide it

Colorado's pattern civil jury instructions keep the categories apart. Under CJI-Civ 6:1, a jury that finds for the injured person considers noneconomic losses (pain, inconvenience, emotional stress, impairment of the quality of life), economic losses (lost earnings, medical expenses), and, as its own numbered item, physical impairment or disfigurement. Jurors are told not to fold disfigurement into the first two categories and not to count the same loss again in the third.

Where the noneconomic cap may apply, CJI-Civ 6:1A has the jury answer a separate question for each category, so the court can apply any limit afterward without touching the disfigurement figure. The cap itself is never disclosed to the jury (C.R.S. § 13-21-102.5(4)). The notes to the instruction point to the Colorado Supreme Court's description of permanent injury in Pringle v. Valdez, 171 P.3d 624, 631 (Colo. 2007), quoting a damages treatise: a person who tortiously inflicts a permanent injury "has taken away something valuable which is independent and different from other recognized elements of damages such as pain and suffering and loss of earning capacity."

One detail matters for how a case is built: that separate disfigurement question is given only when there is sufficient evidence to support a finding that disfigurement was sustained. The scar has to be proven on its own terms, not left as a footnote to the pain story.

What actually affects how scarring is valued

Visibility

Face, neck, hands, and forearms carry the most weight, because they are visible in ordinary life and cannot reasonably be covered. A scar of identical size on the torso is generally valued lower. This is not a judgment about which hurt more. It reflects how much the injury intrudes on daily life.

Permanence

Scar tissue matures over a year or more, sometimes two. It changes color, flattens, softens, and occasionally thickens instead. Hypertrophic scars and keloids can continue to develop well after the wound has closed. Because of that arc, a case valued at month four is being valued on incomplete information, and usually not in the claimant's favor. It is the same logic behind waiting for maximum medical improvement before putting a number on any injury.

Function

Scar contracture across a joint, the inside of an elbow, the web of a hand, the front of a neck, restricts motion as the tissue tightens. That converts a cosmetic injury into a functional one, and functional loss reaches into work capacity and daily independence. Deep partial-thickness and full-thickness burns are the most likely to contract; our guide to burn degree classification explains how depth shows up in a claim.

Whether revision is realistic

Scar revision surgery can improve appearance. It rarely erases anything, it means more procedures, and it carries its own recovery. Where revision is planned but not yet performed, the future cost belongs in the claim, and so does what the person still has to go through to get there.

Age and circumstance

A permanent facial scar on a nineteen year old is a different injury from the same scar at sixty five, purely as a matter of how many years it will be carried. Occupation matters too, for people whose work is public facing or whose hands are the trade.

Proving it without turning it into theater

The most persuasive record is usually the plainest one. Dated photographs taken on a consistent schedule from the first days through maturation, in the same lighting and from the same angles, will do more than dramatic description. So will treating-provider notes that describe the scar in clinical terms: dimensions, color, texture, contracture, planned revision.

What tends to matter most, and what people leave out, is the ordinary detail. Stopping wearing short sleeves. Turning a certain way in photographs. A child asking about it. Those specifics are true, they are verifiable, and they land in a way adjectives never do.

The cap question

Colorado limits some categories of damages, but the applicable cap depends on the type of claim, the defendant, and when the claim accrued. Physical impairment and disfigurement are treated separately under the general cap statute, and special statutory regimes can apply different rules. This is genuinely fact-specific, and a number you find in an older article may simply be wrong for your case. We will tell you what applies to your facts.

A practical note on timing

The pressure to resolve a burn claim tends to peak while the scar is still red, raised, and changing, which is also when it photographs at its worst and predicts its future least reliably. Settling in that window can go either way, and it usually goes one way. Colorado's general personal injury deadline is two years under C.R.S. 13-80-102(1)(a). Claims arising from the use or operation of a motor vehicle are generally three years under C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n), though a product claim against a manufacturer or seller is generally two under C.R.S. 13-80-106. Claims against a public entity require written notice within 182 days after discovery of the injury under C.R.S. 24-10-109; see our guide to the 182-day government notice and the full Colorado personal injury statute of limitations breakdown. There is normally room to let the scar declare itself before deciding. Whether that is right in your case depends on the facts.

We represent injured people in Denver and across Colorado and are available to evaluate burn-injury claims. No attorney fee unless we recover for you, and we do not charge case costs if we do not win. Call (720) 432-7032 or reach our Denver burn injury lawyers. Related reading: what drives Colorado burn settlement value and who is liable for a burn injury in Colorado.