Decision of the Court of Appeal in Warsaw, 1st Civil Division, dated December 15, 2022
I ACz 689/22
- In class action proceedings, the party in the procedural sense is the representative of the group who conducts the proceedings on their own behalf, not the individual members of the group. Adopting a different concept would be inconsistent with a rational interpretation, in particular with Article 4(1) and (3) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Class Action Proceedings.
- At the stage of examining the admissibility of a case in class action proceedings, the legislator introduced a requirement for the homogeneity of the claims of the group members. Homogeneity of claims occurs when the members of the group submit requests for legal protection in the same form to their representative.
The Court of Appeal in Warsaw, 1st Civil Division, composed of the following:
Presiding Judge: SSA Agnieszka Wachowicz-Mazur
having examined on December 15, 2022, in a closed session, the case brought by D. D. as representative of the group against (…) AG in W. (Germany) for payment as a result of the plaintiff’s appeal against the decision of the Regional Court in Warsaw of November 27, 2017, file ref. no. III C 1310/16, decides:
- to amend the contested decision in such a way as to refuse to dismiss the action;
- to leave the decision on the costs of the appeal and cassation proceedings to the court of first instance in its final ruling.
