Decision of the Warsaw-Praga Regional Court in Warsaw 3rd Civil Division of 24th January 2013
III C 491/12

1. It is assumed that the notion of a “claim” – used in Article 1 section 1 of the Act on pursuing claims in group proceedings – is used in the sense of the procedural claim. A procedural claim is a defendant’s statement, detached from substantive law, on the existence of some entitlement, submitted to the court with the view of granting it legal protection. Defendant’s statement, defined in the statement of claims, takes on the form of a demand for the award, for the establishment, and for the shaping of a right or legal relationship. Filing a motion for the granting of legal protection in the same form by all parties covered by the group proceedings is a decisive precondition for the admissibility of group proceedings. Group members, therefore, have to raise the same demand – for the adjudication, for the declaration of the existence or non-existence of a specific right or legal relationship, for the shaping of a legal relationship or a right. Pecuniary claims are homogenous claims, while non-pecuniary claims have this attribute in the case of a homogenous behaviour of the defendant, e.g. cessation of engaging in a specific dishonest market practice.
2. The group members’ claims are based on the same factual and legal grounds. The members of the group are consumers who concluded individual agreements with the defendant on the basis of the same or similar model contract. Each of the agreements included a valorisation clause and lack of possibility to withdraw from the agreement in the event of the rise in the property value as a result of valorisation. The circumstance that the content of individual valorisation clauses is different is of no relevance. The factual basis equal for all members of the group is not altered by the fact that some of them negotiated the valorisation fee while others paid it in full. It is of no relevance, either, whether members of the group concluded developer agreements directly with the defendant or through subrogation by way of an assignment agreement.
3. The possibility of obligating the claimant to pay a deposit is within the Court’s competence. The deposit is to secure the return of the costs of the proceedings, if the claimant loses the case.