Decision of the Court of Appeals in Gdańsk 1st Civil Division of 11th January 2017
I ACz 597/16

1. A statement regarding acceding to the group is a formalized manifestation of the will to pursue a claim through a special court procedure.
2. The role of the representative is not limited to the physical delivery of the submitted statements, but to assess the statements and carry out their pre-selection in order to draw up a list of persons who have joined the group.
3. An examination of membership in a particular group of individuals is a secondary procedure to the examination of the admissibility of the proceedings, especially considering that the court examines the admissibility of group proceedings based on the circumstances of persons entitled from the beginning of the proceedings.
4. The procedural role of the representative of the group, corresponding to the plaintiff’s role in ‘ordinary’ civil proceedings, imposes the duty on him to apply due care for such a preparation of the procedural material, in particular in compiling of a list of persons joining the group, with the inclusion of the precise determination of membership of individual members to the group of members pursuing specific claims so that each of the group members can be assigned to a given claim, but also so each member of the group can raise their claims, taking the possibility of choosing these claims which are described in the lawsuit and in the press announcement, into account.
5. Pursuant to Article 130 CCP, in the case of discrepancies between the announcement and the statement of claims, the court should summon the group representative to explain the emergent doubts. The list of group members and their declarations on joining the group proceedings should be deemed as the pleadings.

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

Presiding Judge:               Barbara Lewandowska, Court of Appeals Judge (rapporteur)

Judges:                               Marek Machnij, Court of Appeals Judge

   Przemysław Banasik, Court of Appeals Judge

having examined on 11^th January 2017 in Gdańsk at the hearing in camera in group proceedings the case filed by group representative – H. O. against (…) and (…) for payment and determination,

following the claimant’s complaint against the decision of the Regional Court in Gdańsk on 8^th March 2016, case file no. XV C 1216/12,

decides to:

1. reverse the decision;
2. leave the decision on the costs of the appeal proceedings to the Court of the first instance in the final judgment.