a lift from a drunk pilot. The pilot died in the resulting crash and the passenger who was injured, sued his estate. Although he drove the pilot to the airfield (which was closed at the time) and helped him start the engine and tune the radio, he argued that he did not freely and voluntarily consent to the risk involved in flying. The Court of Appeal held that there was consent: the passenger was not so drunk as to fail to realise the risks of taking a lift from a drunk pilot, and his actions leading up to the flight demonstrated that he voluntarily accepted those risks. Rescuers For reasons of policy, the courts are reluctant to criticise the behaviour of rescuers. A rescuer would not be considered volens if: He was acting to rescue persons or property endangered by the defendant’s negligence; He was acting under a compelling legal, social or moral duty; and His conduct in all circumstances was reasonable and a natural consequence of the defendant’s negligence. An example of such a case is Haynes v. Harwood [1935] 1 KB 146, in which a policeman was able to recover damages after being injured restraining a bolting horse: he had a legal and moral duty to protect life and property and as such was not held to have been acting as a volunteer or giving willing consent to the action - it was his contractual obligation as an employee and police officer and moral necessity as a human being to do so, and not a wish to volunteer, which caused him to act. In this case the court of appeal affirmed a judgement in favor of a policeman who had been injured in stopping some runaway horses with a van in a crowded street. The policeman who was on duty, not in the street, but in a police station, darted out and was crushed by one of the horses which fell upon him while he was stopping it. It was also held that the rescuer's act need not be instinctive in order to be reasonable, for one who deliberately encounters peril after reflection may often be acting more reasonably than one who acts upon impulse. By contrast, in Cutler v. United Dairies [1933] 2 KB 297 a man who was injured trying to restrain a horse was held to be volens because in that case no human life