Decision of the Regional Court in Szczecin, 1st Civil Division of 30th March 2012
I C 1292/12

The decision was amended by the decision of the Court of Appeals in Szczecin of 28^th August 2012, file ref. no. I ACz 399/12.

1. Being a consumer is not an inherent characteristic of an entity, but an indication of its role in business transactions. The source for the establishment of a special consumer protection regime is the natural inequality between consumers and entrepreneurs. The Civil Code contains only a general definition of the term of a “consumer”, it does not determine legal consequences related therewith, which, in turn, are expressed in the frames of regulations of concrete legal relationships in which not only a consumer appears, but as a rule also requirements pertaining to the other party to the consumer relationship. In principle, the protection in specific consumer statutes is rendered dependent on who the consumer enters into a legal relationship with. Most frequently it is an entrepreneur, but also defined in different manner in connection with the purposes of the legal acts describing such relations.
2. A municipality may conduct business activity, hence it possesses the status of an entrepreneur within the meaning of the Act of 17 December 2009 on pursuing claims in group proceedings. This is due, among others, to the fact that the object of protection stipulated by the above given Act and the Act of 16 February 2007 on Competition and Consumer Protection is similar – the protection of consumers, i.e. entities having a weaker market position when compared with the position of a professional, entrepreneur.
3. Most frequently, activity consisting in providing public services is performed with an intention of obtaining profit and it is not altered even by the fact that the profit is treated as secondary, since satisfying the needs of the self-government community will always remain the primary objective – such activity qualifies to be defined as an economic activity.
4. From the point of view of standards of constitutional protection stemming from Article 76 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, it would be unfair to differentiate the position of natural persons satisfying their most fundamental necessities – the right to accommodation – according to the criteria pertaining to the legal status of the entity providing such a service, i.e. whether the entity conducting such an activity is a public law entity (municipality) or a private law entity.