Decision of the Court of Appeals in Warsaw 6th Civil Division of 27th November 2013
VI ACz 3170/13

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.
2. Demonstrating the circumstances substantiating the demand at the same time constitutes an indication of the circumstances substantiating the membership in the group. According to the contents of Article 12 of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings, these circumstances should be supported by the evidence indicated by the person joining the group in the declaration, whereby it is the person joining the group that is to demonstrate to the group representative that there is evidence of all the circumstances set forth in Article 12 of the quoted Act.
3. The representative of the group attaches declarations on joining the group to the statement of claims. These declarations may not be supplemented or corrected under Article 130 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as only the representative of the group, to whom such declarations were made, may call upon a given person to potentially correct or supplement the declaration.
4. In examining declarations on joining the group, the court in the first order should determine their content, and then assess if it is sufficient to state whether by making them the claimant demonstrated the admissibility of hearing the case under the provisions of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings.
5. Joining group proceedings is not admissible solely on the grounds of making a general statement that the person joining the group has the same claims as those which will be formulated in the statement of claims in the future, whereas the circumstances substantiating the participation of the person joining the group and the claim itself are those that will be indicated in the future.

The decision was reversed by the decision of the Supreme Court of 18^th September 2015, file ref. no. I CSK 672/14.