Decision of the Court of Appeals in Wrocław 1st Civil Division of 30th May 2014
I ACz 1052/14

1. The issue of individual negotiations between individual members of the group and the defendant remains irrelevant to determining the admissibility of examining the case in group proceedings.
2. If the facts legitimizing the existence of specific legal relations are the same for all members of the group, then the condition of the common factual basis is met. This is not precluded by the existence of other facts in the factual basis of the claim (such as the nature of individual claims, their maturity or amount).
3. The formation of subgroups is necessary whenever the group members are affected by the same event, albeit the mechanism and the extent of the event’s impact towards the individual group members differs. If it is possible to isolate smaller groups within the group, which were based e.g. on the approximate value of the damage, thus the establishing of subgroups according to the Article 2 sec. 2 of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings would be admissible. The only criterion for belonging to a particular subgroup is the amount of the pecuniary claim pursued in group proceedings, determined on the basis of a common factual basis. It must be the same for each member of the subgroup and be justified by a common factual circumstances.

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

Presiding Judge: Jan Gibiec, Court of Appeals Judge

Judges: Małgorzata Bohun, Court of Appeals Judge,  Aleksandra Marszałek, Court of Appeals Judge

having examined on 30^th May 2014 in Wrocław at the hearing in camera the case filed by K. W. as the group representative against: (…) Sp. z o.o. (…)” S.K.A. with the registered office in W. for payment, following the defendant’s complaint against the decision of the Regional Court in Wrocław of 28^th January 2014, file ref. no. I  C  1688/13

decides to:

dismiss the complaint.