Volenti non fit injuria (Latin: "to a willing person, no injury is done" or "no injury is done to a person who consents") is a common law doctrine which means that if someone willingly places themselves in a position where harm might result, knowing that some degree of harm might result, they cannot then sue if harm does in fact happen. The 'volenti' only applies to the risk which a reasonable person would consider them as having assumed by their actions; thus a boxer consents to being hit, and to the injuries that might be expected from being hit, but is not a 'volenti' if (for example) his opponent should swing an iron bar at him, or punch him outside the usual terms of boxing. Volenti is also known as a "voluntary assumption of risk".
'Volenti' (from which, indirectly, the English word 'volunteer' is derived) is sometimes described as the plaintiff "consenting to run a risk". In this context, 'volenti' can be distinguished from legal consent in that the latter can prevent some torts arising in the first place (for example, consent to a medical procedure prevents the procedure from being a trespass to the person, or consenting to a person visiting your land prevents them from being a trespasser).
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