Decision of the Regional Court in Warsaw 25th Civil Division of 23rd January 2013
XXV C 4/12

1. According to Article 1 section 1 of the Act (Polish Act on pursuing claims in group proceedings), the claims pursued in group proceedings should be of one type, which means, that the members of the group are pursuing granting of legal protection in the same form – they have to submit the same request (demand).
2. We are dealing with “the same” (identical) factual basis of the pursued claims when the identicalness of the factual circumstances takes place, and the legal protection is pursued by the participants of one event, meaning that there is a link based on the fact that the same event caused the damage. “Similar” (equal) factual basis means a similarity between the individual factual statuses. We are dealing with “equal” factual status when many similar factual events take place, i.e. using the services of one bank, taking one medication, becoming poisoned by the same food product, abusive clauses in loan and developer agreements, etc. The basic set of facts constituting the basis of the occurrence of the disputed legal relationship and a specific claim have to be analogous. The notion of “factual basis” should be understood as a specified set of elements of the factual status, which are invoked in order to prove the statement of claims.
3. The factual basis in the meaning of Article 1 section 1 of the Act is only the basic (initial) set of facts substantiating the claim and discrepancies as to the facts substantiating only the amount of the claim are not an obstacle in recognizing the group proceedings as admissible. Nevertheless, application of the construction of group proceedings is substantiated when there is a set of preconditions which allow for uniform subjective qualification of the illegality of the causal action which resulted in the damage, the compensation of which is the subject of the claim. The essence of group proceedings is the commonality, manifesting itself in the demand which must be typical (common) for all of the claims, the factual or legal situation of the group members must be equal.
4. On the one hand the legislator does not require the identicalness of all of the factual elements, as this would highly narrow the scope of the application of the act, however, on the other hand, the group proceedings would not fulfill their objective – improvement in the effectiveness of proceedings in cases characterized by a significant level of the individuality of the facts and the characteristics of the individual group members. Group proceedings fulfill their role when we are dealing with “typicalness” or “representativeness” of the claim towards all of the group members. The condition of “typicalness” is fulfilled when a legal or factual situation of the group members is equal. Of course, slight differences can exist between the individual grounds of the claims, however, it is necessary for the material factual circumstances to substantiate the common request for all of the claims.
5. In introducing the Act on pursuing claims in group proceedings the legislator bore in mind the introduction of such court proceedings which would at the same time protect the interests of many entities in single proceedings and eliminate the need to conduct parallel proceedings and repeating actions, which can be carried out on a one time basis. This referred to the comprehensive and quick settlement of the dispute. Taking this functional interpretation of the Act into account, the Court is of the opinion that the pursuit of claims on the basis of the provisions of this act is possible in the case in which there is a relationship between the claims covered under the statement of claims, which results in the fact that the joint ruling on them is profitable, that after the forming of the group’s composition the joint ruling and adjudication in the scope of all of the group members will be possible.