Wright v. Brown

A dog that had previously bitten someone was placed under a 14-day quarantine per Connecticut statute, but Wright (plaintiff) alleged the dog was released early and then attacked and injured her. She sued the dog warden and town (defendants) for negligence based on the statutory violation; the trial court held she wasn't within the class of people the statute protected, since it read the statute as protecting only people bitten by diseased (rabid) dogs specifically, and Wright never alleged the dog was diseased.

Whether a statutory violation is relevant to a negligence claim only if the plaintiff's injuries are of the type the statute was intended to protect and the plaintiff is within the intended class of protected persons.