Court case[1915] AC 67

The plaintiff, a miner employed by the defendants, descended the mine at the start of his shift, the cage being the only way in or out. During the shift he was ordered to do a particular piece of work which he and some fellow workers considered unsafe. He refused to do it and asked to be raised to the surface before the shift ended. The cage was available, but the employers did not allow him to use it until the normal time for raising the men; he was thus kept at the bottom of the shaft for some twenty minutes against his wish. He sued for false imprisonment. His refusal to work was treated as a breach of his contract of service.

The House of Lords held that there was no false imprisonment. Viscount Haldane LC reasoned that the plaintiff had gone down the mine on the terms of his employment, under which he would be brought up at the end of the shift; the employers were under no obligation to bring him up at any earlier moment he chose, particularly when he was himself in breach of contract. The maxim volenti non fit injuria applied: having voluntarily entered the mine on those terms, he could not complain that the means of leaving were not placed at his disposal before the agreed time. The employers had imposed no restraint beyond what flowed from the conditions he had accepted.