## Facts

- Sheep owners contracted with a shipowner to carry their sheep by sea from Hamburg to Newcastle.
- An order made under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act 1869 required shipboard animal spaces to be divided into pens of limited size and to have proper battens or other footholds.
- The ship did not comply with those requirements (including inadequate pen divisions and lack of proper footholds).
- A gale occurred during the voyage, and many sheep were washed overboard and drowned.
- The owners sued for damages, pleading breach of statutory duty based on noncompliance with the order.
- The shipowner demurred, arguing the pleaded facts did not state a legally actionable claim for damages.

## Issues

1. Whether noncompliance with statutory animal-transport requirements gives a private right of action for damages when the loss is not the type of harm the statute was intended to prevent.
2. Whether a statutory penalty for contravention implies a civil damages remedy for persons who suffer loss from the contravention.
3. Whether the scope of a statutory duty, for purposes of civil liability, is limited to the statute’s targeted “mischief,” including the class of protected persons and the kind of protected interests.

## Decision

- The court sustained the demurrer and entered judgment for the shipowner.
- The plaintiffs could not recover damages for sheep washed overboard because the statute and order targeted contagious disease control (and related humane-treatment concerns), not maritime loss from storms.
- The existence of a statutory penalty for contravention did not, by itself, create a civil right to damages for losses outside the statute’s intended protective scope.
- The declaration therefore disclosed no cause of action for breach of statutory duty in relation to this kind of loss.

## Legal Principles

- A statutory breach supports a damages action only where the plaintiff and the harm fall within the statute’s intended protective scope.
- The scope of an alleged statutory duty in civil litigation is determined by the statute’s object and context, not merely by literal noncompliance.
- A penal statute (one enforced by a fine or other penalty) does not automatically imply a private damages remedy, particularly for harms outside the mischief the legislation addressed.
- Statutory noncompliance cannot be used to impose civil liability for a different kind of risk than the statute was designed to prevent, even if compliance might have avoided the loss.

## Conclusion

The court rejected a damages claim based on breach of an animal-transport order because the plaintiffs’ loss—sheep washed overboard in a gale—was not the kind of harm the legislation sought to prevent, and the statute’s penalty provision did not imply a broader private remedy.


Gorris v. Scott, L.R. 9 Ex. 125 (Exch. 1874)