Decision of the Court of Appeals in Wrocław, 1st Civil Division of 6th September 2016
I ACz 1945/16

1. Obtaining the consent of all group members is a necessary condition for the commencement of group proceedings in a case for pecuniary claims. The formal requirements concerning the declaration on joining the group are specified in the first sentence of Article 12 of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings. Under this provision, in the declaration on joining the group, entitled group members should determine their demand and indicate circumstances which substantiate the demand as well as their membership in the group, and also submit evidence.
2. Under Article 11 (2) (3) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings, the declaration on joining the group should be submitted to the group representative within the term specified by the Court. The term of two months, provided for in Article 11 (2) (3) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings does not pertain to submitting the list of the people who joined the group to the court.
3. There are three stages at which the declarations on joining the group may be submitted: 1) the period which runs from the date of filing the statement of claims (Article 6 (2) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings), 2) the period of two months from the date of the announcement of the filing the statement of claims (Article 11 (1) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings), 3) the term which ends on the day of termination of the proceedings at the first instance (Article 13 (2) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings).
4. Because of the effects of submitting the list of declarations, the list of group members with the declarations on joining the group attached is – at the moment of filling them in court – considered to be a specific type of a procedural letter. The Act does not stipulate any requirements regarding the form and content of the list of individuals who joined the group. It is important for the list to specify the people who joined the group and for the content of the declarations to be the same as the content of the list. In case of discrpenacies between them, the court may request the group representative to remove defects correction or, alternatively, refuse to include particular parties in the decision on composition of the group.
5. Standardization of claims means that in group proceedings the claims for an identical amount for all group members are submitted. The discrepancies between value the claims are admissible exclusively by resorting to the institution of subgroups in such a manner that all members of a particular subgroup pursue claims of the same value whereas the value of claims may be different in case of members of different subgroups. Article 2 (1) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings clearly refers to the standardization of the value of claims, not to e.g. ’standardization of rules for calculating the claims‘.

Court of Appeals in Wrocław 1^st Civil Division in the following ruling bench:

Jacek Gołaczyński, Court of Appeals Judge

Małgorzata Bohun, Regional Court Judge

Dariusz Kłodnicki, Regional Court Judge

having examined on 6^th September 2016 in Wrocław at the hearing in camera the case filed by E. S. acting as a group representative against (…)S.A. in W. for payment, following the claimant’s complaint against the decision of the Regional Court in Wrocław of 6^th August 2016, file ref. no. I C 704/14,

hereby decides to:

1. dismiss the complaint in the scope of the 1^st point,
2. reverse 2^nd point of the contested decision and remit the case to the Regional Court in Wrocław for rehearing in this scope.