Decision of the Regional Court in Warsaw 3rd Civil Division of 4th November 2016
III C 62/14
The decision was corrected by the decision of the Court of Appeals in Warsaw 6th Civil Division of 6th December 2017, VI ACz 1357/17
- The condition of the identical factual basis is met when the facts substantiating the existence of the legal relationship, which is the basis of the claims, are equal for all group members. The essence of the group proceedings is the commonality manifest in the demand which must be typical (common) for all claims.
- In the court’s opinion, during the examination of the premise of the same factual basis of the claims, the circumstances which have significance for the final ruling, not any circumstances which appear under contracts, should be taken into account.
- Article 2 (1) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings explicitly refers to standardization of the amount of claims, not to standardization of claim value calculation rules. The standardization of a claim involves each member of the group, therefore the consent thereto should be expressed by all group members. The standardization of the claims should be carried out done on the grounds of common circumstances of the case, i.e. the same for all group members and simultaneously different from these which determined the separation of other groups.
- Rendering a decision on examination of the case in group proceedings is not a directional judgment, which somewhat – in the case of finding the procedure advisable –automatically cause the necessity to render a judgment in favor of the Claimant. Before the final ruling, in the group proceedings, the court is obligated to reassess the preliminary issues, examined at the previous stages of the proceedings, which decide on the admissibility and form of judgment. Therefore, it is obvious that the reassessment includes all premises of the admissibility of group proceedings (number of members in the group, homogeneity of claims, the same or similar factual basis and the legal classification of claims). The judgment on the merits may be issued only after conclusion that the premises of admissibility are met.
- Rendering a decision on the admissibility of group proceedings, pursuant to Article 10 (1) of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings, does not preclude a later ascertainment of inadmissibility of the proceedings at each stage thereof, what results in an amendment of the decision (pursuant to Article 359 CCP) and rejection of the statement of claims.
- The optionality of the deposit in group proceedings does not mean discretion. The court shall consider all circumstances of the case in respect to advisability of application of this institution.
- The defendant, who files a motion for deposit, should make plausible, firstly, that the action against him is obviously unfounded or the statement of claims is unlikely to be allowed, therefore it has the characteristics of litigiousness. Secondly, the defendant should make plausible that the lack of the deposit to secure the future claim for reimbursement of costs of the proceedings will make an execution of the cost from the opposite party impossible or significantly more difficult.
The Regional Court in Warsaw III Civil Division in the following ruling bench:
Agnieszka Rafałko, Regional Court Judge
Ewa Jończyk, Regional Court Judge
Mariusz Solka, Regional Court Judge
having examined on 5th January 2016 in Warsaw at the hearing the class action filed by the Municipal Consumer Ombudsman in S. against V. L. Association (…) S.A. V. (…) with its registered office in W. for payment,
decides to:
- examine the case in the group proceedings;
- dismiss the defendant’s motion to obligate the claimant to pay the deposit to secure the costs of the proceedings.
