Case law > Judgement of the Regional Court in Bydgoszcz 1st Civil Division of 29th April 2015

Judgement of the Regional Court in Bydgoszcz 1st Civil Division of 29th April 2015
I C 709/11

  1. If the grounds of tortious and contractual liability coincide, the ruling court is obligated to decide based on which grounds the case should be adjudicated on, with taking into consideration which of the grounds is more advantageous for the injured party or due to the nature of the claim of the cases which may be applicable in a specific case.
  2. Implementation by the bank only a superficial procedure of verification of candidates for bank’s agents provides the grounds to find that the defendant is at fault in selecting an agent, which entails the bank’s liability under Article 429 CC.
  3. Although concluding an agency agreement containing provisions intended to make the agency outpost maximally similar to the bank’s own outposts was admissible, nevertheless, the nature of the activity which was to be conducted in such outposts resulted in the existence of the bank’s particular duties in the scope of ensuring effective supervision of the correct functioning of the agency outposts in order to protect interests of the bank’s clients.
  4. Considering that in the case under consideration the claimant and the members of the group were injured by misleading them in terms of the nature of the agency outpost and causing an erroneous conviction in them that the ‘investment loan’ agreement concluded thereby is a bank product, which was an action contradictory with the provisions of the agency agreement, the bank’s liability may not be at all excluded. In this situation, the defendant bank, under the provision of Article 474 CC, could be held liable for the damage caused by the agent, since it is held liable for his actions as for its own actions.
  5. The fact that some of the injured parties did not at all read the agreement or did so superficially is a circumstance that might provide the grounds to find that they contributed to the arising of the damage in the meaning of Article 362 CC. Yet, this circumstance should be assessed with taking into consideration the circumstance whether the fact of careful reading of the agreement would have impacted a decision to conclude it.
  6. The obligation to redress the damage is a punitive measure specific to penal proceedings and does not exclude a possibility of pursuing claims in civil proceedings against another entity also liable for the damage, especially in a situation where the factual and legal basis of the demand are different.

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