The Changing Landscape of Volunteerism in Search and Rescue

A Court of Appeal ruling handed down in January 2026 has created a legal problem that the global search and rescue community cannot ignore. The case, Maritime and Coastguard Agency v Groom EWCA Civ 6, confirmed that Coastguard Rescue Officers, long classified as "volunteers," are, in law, workers whenever they attend a remunerated activity. The word "volunteer" in a handbook, the court found, means nothing. What matters is whether a real wage-and-work bargain exists in practice.

The ruling is binding only in England and Wales. But its reasoning tracks a decades-long trend in which courts across common-law jurisdictions have consistently looked past voluntary labels to examine the substance of working relationships. Any SAR organization that pays its members anything for showing up, even a claimable allowance that most members never bother to claim, needs to read this judgment carefully.

35 years of service, five years of litigation

Martin Groom joined HM Coastguard's volunteer Coastguard Rescue Service (CRS) in 1985. Over the next 35 years, he and roughly 3,000 other Coastguard Rescue Officers (CROs) responded to cliff rescues, mud rescues, maritime search coordination, and first response across some of Europe's most hazardous coastlines.

On paper, CROs were volunteers. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said so explicitly, in a Volunteer Handbook, a Code of Conduct, and a Remuneration Document that all used the language of volunteering. But those same documents described minimum expected attendance rates, required compliance with the Code of Conduct during operational activity, and detailed a mechanism by which CROs could claim payment for attending training, exercises, and live incidents.

In May 2020, Groom's position was terminated following a disciplinary process. He requested that a GMB trade union representative accompany him to the appeal hearing, a statutory right under Section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 available only to workers and employees, not genuine volunteers. The MCA refused. Groom filed an Employment Tribunal claim, and a five-year legal journey began.

The legal architecture

UK employment law divides working people into three categories. Employees have the full suite of statutory rights, including unfair dismissal protection. Independent contractors have none. The contested middle ground is the so-called "Limb (b) worker," defined in Section 230(3)(b) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 as anyone working under a contract involving personal service to an organization that is not simply a client or customer of that individual's independent business.

Critically, the word "volunteer" does not appear in Section 230 or anywhere in the ERA 1996. Parliament created no statutory carve-out for volunteers. Whether a voluntary label prevents worker status has always been a question of fact.

The Groom litigation sits at the apex of four decades of case law on exactly that question. In Autoclenz Ltd v Belcher UKSC 41, the Supreme Court held that car valeters were workers despite contracts calling them self-employed, establishing that tribunals must examine the reality of the working relationship rather than the written terms. In Uber BV v Aslam UKSC 5, the court applied and strengthened that principle, rejecting Uber's argument that its contractual documentation accurately reflected the true nature of its relationship with 40,000 UK drivers. Lord Justice Stuart-Smith explicitly cited Uber v Aslam in the Groom judgment. The direction of travel was clear before this case reached the Court of Appeal.

What the tribunals found

The Employment Tribunal initially sided with the MCA. Employment Judge Cadney found that no contract existed between Groom and the agency. Weight was placed on the fact that payment was not automatic: CROs had to submit a claim, and many never did. No contract, the tribunal concluded, meant no worker status.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal reversed that finding in May 2024. Deputy High Court Judge Gavin Mansfield KC was pointed in his analysis. The word "volunteer" carries no special legal status and cannot, by itself, prevent a contractual relationship from forming. The mechanism for claiming payment was irrelevant to whether an entitlement existed. The right to be paid is what creates the contract; whether it is exercised is a separate question entirely. A contract arose each time a CRO attended a remunerated activity; that contract included an obligation of personal service, and worker status followed.

The Court of Appeal, with Lord Justice Bean, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, and Lord Justice Warby sitting, heard the MCA's appeal over two days in November 2025 and dismissed it in January 2026. Lord Justice Stuart-Smith found that a defined mechanism for remuneration was "a strong indication both of an intention to create legal relations and… the existence of a contract." The MCA's argument that CROs had no enforceable right to payment during operational activity was, in the court's words, "unarguable." Lord Justice Bean disposed of the MCA's mutuality-of-obligation argument directly: mutual obligations during each discrete attendance were sufficient. The freedom to decline a future call-out did not negate worker status once a CRO chose to attend.

What the judgment actually says

The ruling should be read precisely. The Court of Appeal did not hold that all volunteers are workers or that CROs are employees. CROs are workers only during each discrete period of attendance at a remunerated activity, not between call-outs. There is no overarching employment contract.

What the judgment does say is this: a person labeled a volunteer can be a Limb (b) worker. That label is not a term of art in employment law. Non-automatic payment does not prevent a contract from forming. Freedom not to respond to any given call-out does not prevent worker status from attaching when attendance does occur. Volunteer Handbooks and Codes of Conduct that describe obligations during duty create legally cognizable mutual obligations, regardless of what they call the relationship.

Worker status carries concrete entitlements. For the MCA's CROs, those now include the National Minimum Wage (currently £12.21 per hour for workers aged 21 and over) for remunerated activities, 5.6 weeks' paid annual leave accrued pro-rata, rest break entitlements under the Working Time Regulations 1998, the right to accompaniment at disciplinary hearings, whistleblowing protection under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, protection from unlawful wage deductions, pension auto-enrolment where earnings qualifying criteria are met, and Equality Act 2010 protections. For the MCA alone, this affects more than 3,000 CROs across more than 350 stations.

The judgment also lands inside a shifting enforcement landscape. The Employment Rights Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in late 2025 and is rolling out through 2026 and 2027, is the most sweeping overhaul of UK employment law since the 1990s. The new Fair Work Agency, launched in April 2026, takes on National Minimum Wage enforcement, exactly what's now in play for CRO-style volunteer workers. Enforcement capacity is growing as this litigation concludes.

Implications across the UK SAR sector

For the MCA, the immediate decision is structural. The agency can move to a purely expense-reimbursement model that eliminates the wage-and-work bargain the court identified. However, that risks damaging retention and recruitment among CROs accustomed to operational payments. Alternatively, it can accept worker status and ensure full compliance with every associated obligation. Neither option is cost-free or administratively simple, and neither can be deferred indefinitely.

Mountain Rescue England and Wales, Mountain Rescue Scotland, and the regional teams they coordinate should apply the Groom test to their own arrangements. Most mountain rescue teams operate without paying members for rescues. Where teams do provide allowances, make claimable payments for training or exercises, or where governance documents impose operational compliance obligations, the Groom analysis applies directly.

The RNLI operates approximately 5,000 trained volunteer crew alongside paid staff. The RNLI does not generally pay volunteer crew for operational call-outs, and publicly states that kitting a crew member costs around £3,500, borne by the charity. A genuinely gratuitous model of this kind is distinguishable from the CRS arrangement the court examined. The judgment is nonetheless a clear signal that legal teams must scrutinize any payment mechanisms, including allowances, per-call-out fees, and training stipends, that go beyond pure out-of-pocket expense reimbursement.

The global lens

SAR leaders outside England and Wales should not treat this as someone else's problem. The Groom reasoning applies wherever domestic employment law takes a substance-over-form approach to worker classification, which describes most common-law jurisdictions.

In the United States, the Fair Labor Standards Act provides that individuals who volunteer services without contemplation of pay to public agencies are not employees under federal law, a position Congress clarified explicitly following a 1985 Supreme Court decision. The overwhelming majority of US county SAR teams operate on this model: no compensation, no claimable remuneration, no wage-and-work bargain. The Mountain Rescue Association explicitly prohibits member teams from collecting payment from rescued persons or for rescue services. Teams operating on this genuinely gratuitous model are not exposed to a Groom-type analysis. Teams or sheriff's departments that pay stipends, per-call-out fees, or mission-specific compensation, even if described as volunteer pay, should review those arrangements with labour/labor counsel against applicable state wage and hour laws. The Groom risk is directly proportional to the degree of financial payment.

In Canada, the federal Income Tax Act provides a $1,000 annual tax exemption for amounts paid to emergency service volunteers, implicitly acknowledging that SAR volunteers are sometimes paid. Whether payments above that threshold, or structural arrangements resembling the CRS model, could trigger employment standards protections is an open question. A 2024 Ontario Superior Court decision found that a long-term volunteer was wrongfully terminated when a not-for-profit refused to renew the engagement, grounding the finding in the organization's own Code of Conduct and policies, the same analytical move the Groom courts made. Canadian SAR legal advisors should take note.

Australia's Fair Work Act 2009 draws a sharp distinction between employees and volunteers, with the central test being whether parties intended to create a legally binding employment relationship and whether financial gain was contemplated. Australian SAR volunteers are generally insulated from employment classification provided their arrangements genuinely lack financial gain. That said, Australian SAR volunteers already hold workplace rights regardless of employment status, including safe workplace protections, anti-discrimination protections, and bullying protections. Organizations receiving state or federal funding with conditions around participant remuneration should review those conditions against Fair Work Act thresholds.

New Zealand's Land Search and Rescue network relies on approximately 3,500 volunteers organized into regional teams coordinated by the New Zealand Police. Fire and Emergency New Zealand operates a reimbursement scheme for volunteer firefighters. The Employment Relations Act 2000 looks to the nature of the relationship rather than contractual labels, in terms closely parallel to the English approach. The Groom finding that a claimable reimbursement constitutes remuneration capable of supporting a contract would apply with equal logic under that framework. New Zealand SAR legal advisors should audit volunteer payment structures proactively.

At the international level, the Groom judgment has no force on instruments such as the IAMSAR Manual, but it highlights a tension that IAMSAR does not resolve: many national SAR systems rely on volunteer or auxiliary personnel whose employment status, domestic rights, and liability protections vary enormously by jurisdiction. As IMO member states develop and sustain mixed professional-volunteer SAR systems, those domestic legal frameworks will increasingly shape the long-term sustainability of those systems, a policy dimension that deserves attention at RCC and MRCC planning levels.

The practical audit

The Groom decision yields a clear framework for any SAR organization reviewing its exposure.

Map every payment mechanism. Does any remuneration flow to volunteers beyond pure out-of-pocket expense reimbursement? Per-call-out payments, training stipends, allowances for travel, or any claimable sum, even if rarely claimed, are potential triggers. The critical question is whether the right to claim exists, not whether it is exercised.

Review the governance documents. Volunteer Handbooks, Codes of Conduct, Operational Procedures, and similar materials should be scrutinized for language that creates obligations during duty. Requirements to follow instructions, comply with operational standards, or maintain minimum attendance rates all point toward the mutual obligation the court found decisive. The documents need not use the word "contract." The court will read behind whatever label is used.

Decide on a clear model and commit to it. Two legally defensible positions exist. The first is a genuinely gratuitous model: no claimable remuneration, no minimum attendance requirements, and no binding duty to follow instructions during activity beyond what the common law of reasonable care would imply. This is the model most US teams use and the model the RNLI appears to maintain for volunteer crew. The second is a frank acceptance of worker status: structure the relationship properly, pay National Minimum Wage for remunerated activities, calculate and pay holiday pay, and extend the full suite of worker rights. This is more expensive and administratively complex, but it reflects the reality of what the relationship is, and may ultimately support better recruitment and retention.

The middle ground (paying volunteers for activities while calling them volunteers to avoid the associated legal obligations) is no longer viable in England and Wales after Groom, and it is increasingly exposed in other common-law jurisdictions where courts apply the same substance-over-form analysis.

What this means

Maritime and Coastguard Agency v Groom began as a case about one man's right to have a trade union representative present at a disciplinary appeal. It has ended as a definitive statement that voluntary labels carry no legal weight when the practical relationship involves personal service, compliance obligations during duty, and a claimable right to payment.

For a global SAR community built on the commitment of men and women who turn out in the dark, in bad weather, for people they have never met, this ruling is a call to be honest about what that commitment actually means in law, and to structure the relationships that underpin it accordingly. The volunteers who conduct coastal rescues at three in the morning, who move in teams above the treeline in winter conditions, who wade river channels searching for a missing child, deserve clarity about where they stand. So do the organizations that depend on them.

This article is intended as commentary and general information for the SAR community. It does not constitute legal advice. Organizations should seek specialist employment law advice before making changes to their volunteer arrangements.

References

Employment Relations Act 1999, s.10. UK Parliament.

Employment Rights Act 1996, s.230. UK Parliament.

Employment Rights Act 2025. UK Parliament.

Working Time Regulations 1998. UK Parliament.

Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. UK Parliament.

Equality Act 2010. UK Parliament.

Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). Australian Parliament.

Employment Relations Act 2000. New Zealand Parliament.

Autoclenz Ltd v Belcher UKSC 41.

Uber BV v Aslam UKSC 5.

Maritime and Coastguard Agency v Groom EWCA Civ 6.

Mr Martin Groom v Maritime and Coastguard Agency EAT 71.

Canada Revenue Agency. (2024). Payments to emergency services volunteers. Government of Canada. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/payroll/payroll-deductions-contributions/special-situations/emergency-volunteers.html

Fair Work Ombudsman. (2024). Employee or volunteer. Australian Government. https://www.fairwork.gov.au

International Maritime Organization. (2022). IAMSAR Manual (Vols. I-III). IMO Publishing.

Mountain Rescue Association. (2024). How do I get a job in mountain rescue? https://mra.org/how-do-i-get-a-job-in-mountain-rescue/

National Council for Voluntary Organisations. (2025). Volunteers and employment rights. NCVO. https://www.ncvo.org.uk/help-and-guidance/involving-volunteers/volunteers-and-the-law/volunteers-and-employment-rights/

Ontario Superior Court. (2024). Volunteer wrongful termination decision. Reported in Employment and Labour Law Blog, Sherrard Kuzz LLP. https://www.employmentandlabour.com/volunteer-rights-ontario-court-finds-long-term-volunteer-wrongfully-terminated/

US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. (2024). FLSA and volunteers. https://webapps.dol.gov/elaws/whd/flsa/docs/volunteers.asp