1. The basis for assessing the consumer nature of claims has to be their source – contracts, in which the group members acted as consumers. Persons who signed – not in the scope of theirs business activity – contracts with the housing cooperative on building or buying rights to the flats and parking places – are consumers.

1. Members of the group, represented by the claimant, pursue only one type of claim, understood in the procedural sense as coming forth by all members of the group with the demand to grant a genetically identical form of legal protection, namely with an action for payment. Members of the group seek to be awarded a specific amount of money, coming forth against the defendant with a homogenous pecuniary claim. If they seek protection of property interests, due to the identity of the goods subject to protection, the homogeneity of the claim is supported also by its property nature.
2. Claims based on an identical factual status are claims sharing the same factual basis (a sensu stricto precondition) or claims sharing relevant factual circumstances (a sensu largo precondition). Despite the fact that all of them were bound by contracts concluded individually with the defendant company, members of the group invoke the abusive nature of contractual clauses functioning in the model contracts used in the case of each client. In this sense, it was the same factual precondition, while individual differences resulting from the content of individual legal relationships of the group’s members do not result in “separation” of the factual basis of their claims. We deal with the same factual basis of the statement of claims (identity of factual circumstances) when there is a bond based on uniformity of the event being the source of the claim between the group’s members. Claims of each of the members are derived not so much from individual contracts, as from the fact that each of them – according to statements contained in the statement of claims – provided for such a manner of determination of the premises surface area required to set the price which, according to the group’s members, had the characteristics of an abusive clause.
3. Cases pertaining to claims brought by consumers against entrepreneurs and arising against various bases will be cases for consumer protection. Consumer protection cases are cases arising against consumers’ claims towards the entrepreneur from lease agreements, sale agreements, credit or loan agreements, or carriage agreements. A case arising against agreements aimed at purchasing residential premises in the frames of an investment realised by the defendant in the capacity of a developer, with the aim of satisfying personal residential needs of the group’s members and their relatives, constitutes precisely a case on consumer rights protection.
4. The principles for standardisation (equalisation) of claims of group’s members and formation of sub-groups consisted in such a specification of claims of individual members of the group in such a manner that to the nominally lowest claim of a given member (members) of the group the nominally closest in terms of the amount claim of another member (members) of the group is attached. Simultaneously, a table was attached to the statement of claims listing group’s members’ claims divided into individual sub-groups with the indication of a member (members) of the group and the claim they are entitled to, division into subgroups and indication of the claim they are entitled to and the claim equalised within the subgroup. The manner of standardisation of claims thus established is compliant with the criteria provided for in Article 2 of the Act.

1. The Act does not provide the time limit for correction of deficiencies pertaining to declarations on joining the group, providing only that after the lapse of a deadline set forth by the court, not shorter than one month from the date of serving the claimant membership-related charges, the court issues a decision on the composition of the group. This means that correction of deficiencies and misstatements related to accessing the group may be effectively performed after the lapse of the date set forth for joining the group itself. Adopting the contrary view would undermine the sense of conducting group proceedings, which may cover a larger number of individuals (group members) and in frames of which it is difficult to avoid certain oversights or deficiencies – especially in the scope of a declaration on joining the group and the need to collect and meticulously verify required documentation.

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

Presiding Judge:            Ewa Głowacka, Court of Appeals Judge

Judges:                            Małgorzata Bohun, Court of Appeals Judge (rapporteur)

 Janusz Kaspryszyn, Court of Appeals Judge

having examined on the 12^th December 2013 in Wrocław at the hearing, the case for payment filed by (…) against (…) sp. z o.o. in O.

as a result of the claimant’s appeal against the decision of the Regional Court in Opole of 2^nd July 2013, file ref. no. I C 605/11,

1. In the Court’s opinion, the members of the group are pursuing one type of claims, based on the same factual basis, since they derive them from the termination of their agreements for the heat supply, effective on 31^st August 2013. Hence, they comply with the conditions mentioned in Article 1.1 of the Act of 17 December 2009 on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings.

The decision was reversed by the decision of the Court of Appeals in Katowice of 4^th July 2014, file ref. no. I ACz 260/14.

1. A declaratory judgment rendered in group proceedings rather corresponds to an interlocutory judgment known for a long time in classical civil proceedings. This would mean that group proceedings would cover all the premises of legitimacy and contestability of a claim, including the charge of limitation period, leaving only the issue of the value of claims to be settled in further actions.
2. The argument that Article 2 (3) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings directly excludes legal interest as a prerequisite of class action, cannot be successfully used to undermine the thesis stated hereinbefore. It seems that the rationale of the regulation was to prevent the dismissal of a claim for establishment of one’s liability due only to the fact that submitting a demand for performance was possible. This would mean that ’an  action for establishment of liability in group proceedings has become a particular type of an action in group proceedings, not identical one with the claim for establishment of liability regulated under the Code of Civil Procedure, similarly as the claim for performance in group proceedings shows characteristics setting it apart from a classical claim action.

1. At this point, it should be emphasized that at this stage of the proceedings (determination of the group composition), the court does not examine the merits of the premises for individual defendant’s tort liability for damages and the scope of this liability. The requirement to prove (in cases for pecuniary claims) or to make plausible (in other cases, including cases for establishment) a group membership is not the same as the requirement to prove the pursued claims in terms of content, which only takes place in the examination proceedings.

1. The notion of a “claim” – used in Article 1 of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings – appears in the meaning of a procedural demand. The first precondition deciding on the admissibility of group proceedings is therefore for all the parties covered by the group action to request for the granting of legal protection in the same form.

1. The subject of each proceedings is the claim, in the formal meaning, and it is its contents that indicate what the claimant party demands from the opposing party as well as what form of the protection of their rights they are expecting to obtain by means of seeking redress. It is obvious that the content of the procedural claim will be dependent on the legal situation of the claimant who makes (specifies) this claim and who will strive towards implementing the relevant substantive law norm (or possibly several norms) in the proceedings that will be pending before the court.

1. Formal requirements of a declaration on joining the group are regulated by Article 12 of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings. Next to an express will to join the group, the declaration should precisely specify the demand raised against the defendant by the person joining the group, and also providing circumstances substantiating such a demand and demonstrating evidence. At the same time, a declaration on joining the group should indicate circumstances substantiating the person’s membership in the group along with evidence proving such membership. A declaration on joining the group should also include all the mandatory elements of a statement of claims and, additionally, circumstances which attest to the fact that the demand being raised by the person is a claim in the meaning of Article 1 of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings. This means that the claim of a person who joins the group should be of the same type as the claims of parties covered by the statement of claims. In such a declaration, the person joining the group should also demonstrate a factual relationship with claims of the group’s other members. As regards circumstances substantiating the demand, the person joining the group is obligated to demonstrate that they are equal (similar) to those indicated in the statement of claims. Otherwise, the claim of a person wishing to join the group will not comply with the premises of the claim being pursued in the group proceedings set forth in Article 1 of the Act On Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings.