Case law > Decision of the Regional Court in Warsaw 21st Labour Division of 21th October 2015

Decision of the Regional Court in Warsaw 21st Labour Division of 21th October 2015
XXI P 70/15

  1. In the event the amount of the statement of claims of each group member includes both compensation for the lack of valorisation of remuneration by the average salary increase annual rate, and the statutory interest compensated on the day of filing the claim, due for the delay in payment of the basic claim, the claimant admittedly raises monetary claims, however, in this case the procedural claim is based on two different substantive grounds, therefore the claim of each claimant is partially based on a different factual and legal basis.
  2. The raising of in fact two different pecuniary claims by each claimant (compensation and compensated statutory interest) leads to a violation of Article 2(1) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings.
  3. It seems that the rationale for regulating group proceedings does not include the possibility of pursuing two different monetary claims by standardising them not by the common circumstances of the case, but by limiting the value of the compensated statutory interest.
  4. In a situation in which the factual and legal basis of the pursued claims and their homogeneous nature are the same for all of the claimants, all these claims need to be standardised if the Claimants decide to pursue them in group proceedings, without the possibility of dividing them into smaller groups, conditioned only by different amounts of the same claims.
  5. The potential undervaluation officers’ remuneration (specified in the legal provisions) related to the lack of valorisation in 2009 and 2010 should be the object of a dispute concerning remuneration, without the need to refer to tortious liability which makes it impossible to examine the dispute as a class action.
  6. It is not possible to attribute unlawfulness to the Minister for Internal Affairs’ omission of the valorisation of salaries of the Border Guard officers from 2009-2014, since the defendant was bound by the provisions of the budget law, the compliance with the Constitution of which raises no doubts in connection with the stance of the Constitutional Tribunal.
  7. Where the circumstances referred to in the statement of claims correspond to the statutory grounds of admissibility of a class action, but the factual circumstances substantiating the claim are not related to a tort, the actions is subject to dismissal.

The Regional Court in Warsaw 21st Labour Division in the following ruling bench:

Presiding Judge: Sylwia Kulma, Regional Court Judge

Judges: Monika Sawa, Regional Court Judge, Grzegorz Kochan (rapporteur), District Court Judge (delegated)

having examined on 21st October  2015 in Warsaw the case filed by  (…) against the State Treasury – Ministry for Interior in Warsaw for compensation

hereby decides to:

dismiss the statement of claims.