Decision of the Regional Court in Wrocław 1st Civil Division of 28th January 2014
I C 1688/13

1. Members of the group, represented by the claimant, pursue only one type of claim, understood in the procedural sense as coming forth by all members of the group with the demand to grant a genetically identical form of legal protection, namely with an action for payment. Members of the group seek to be awarded a specific amount of money, coming forth against the defendant with a homogenous pecuniary claim. If they seek protection of property interests, due to the identity of the goods subject to protection, the homogeneity of the claim is supported also by its property nature.
2. Claims based on an identical factual status are claims sharing the same factual basis (a sensu stricto precondition) or claims sharing relevant factual circumstances (a sensu largo precondition). Despite the fact that all of them were bound by contracts concluded individually with the defendant company, members of the group invoke the abusive nature of contractual clauses functioning in the model contracts used in the case of each client. In this sense, it was the same factual precondition, while individual differences resulting from the content of individual legal relationships of the group’s members do not result in “separation” of the factual basis of their claims. We deal with the same factual basis of the statement of claims (identity of factual circumstances) when there is a bond based on uniformity of the event being the source of the claim between the group’s members. Claims of each of the members are derived not so much from individual contracts, as from the fact that each of them – according to statements contained in the statement of claims – provided for such a manner of determination of the premises surface area required to set the price which, according to the group’s members, had the characteristics of an abusive clause.
3. Cases pertaining to claims brought by consumers against entrepreneurs and arising against various bases will be cases for consumer protection. Consumer protection cases are cases arising against consumers’ claims towards the entrepreneur from lease agreements, sale agreements, credit or loan agreements, or carriage agreements. A case arising against agreements aimed at purchasing residential premises in the frames of an investment realised by the defendant in the capacity of a developer, with the aim of satisfying personal residential needs of the group’s members and their relatives, constitutes precisely a case on consumer rights protection.
4. The principles for standardisation (equalisation) of claims of group’s members and formation of sub-groups consisted in such a specification of claims of individual members of the group in such a manner that to the nominally lowest claim of a given member (members) of the group the nominally closest in terms of the amount claim of another member (members) of the group is attached. Simultaneously, a table was attached to the statement of claims listing group’s members’ claims divided into individual sub-groups with the indication of a member (members) of the group and the claim they are entitled to, division into subgroups and indication of the claim they are entitled to and the claim equalised within the subgroup. The manner of standardisation of claims thus established is compliant with the criteria provided for in Article 2 of the Act.

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