Case law > Decision of the Court of Appeal in Warsaw, 5th Civil Division, dated 28th September 2022

Decision of the Court of Appeal in Warsaw, 5th Civil Division, dated 28th September 2022
V ACz 555/22

  1. Claims of group members shall be based on the same legal basis if they derive from the issuance of the same normative acts and from the same omissions of the defendant.
  2. In order to establish the membership of a member in a group, probability is sufficient.
  3. Group proceedings, in which the demand for the “determination of liability” of the defendant is formulated, have the character of a special autonomous proceeding. The autonomy of this proceeding is determined primarily by the separate legal regime of the group proceeding, as well as its purpose and legal functions, as it is intended to conclude with a decision that constitutes a specific prejudication for the resolution of future disputes involving a group of persons in the relevant individual court proceedings or as a result of the conclusion of appropriate settlements between the plaintiffs and the defendant.
  4. In group proceedings individual circumstances of each group member are not examined, as these will be evaluated in possible subsequent individual trials. The issuance of a determining judgment in these proceedings concerning a large group of people is aimed only at determining the defendant’s liability for a specific event. If, on the other hand, there are individual proceedings in which the verdict issued under Article 2 Section 3 of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings will be a prejudgment, it is only in these proceedings that the individual circumstances will be examined.
  5. An action to establish the liability of the defendant in a case for a monetary claim arising out of a tort constituting a single event (Article 2 Section 3 in conjunction with Article 1 Sections 1 and 2 of the Act on Pursuing Claims in Group Proceedings) is also permissible in group proceedings when the premise of the occurrence of the damage and its amount depends on the individual factual circumstances of the individual members of the group.
  6. The diversity of individual factual circumstances peculiar to individual group members (i.e., related to the occurrence of the damage itself, the exact mechanism of its occurrence and its magnitude) cannot constitute a reason for refusing to hear a lawsuit in group proceedings.

The Court of Appeal in Warsaw, 5th Civil Division, composed of:

Presiding Judge:                     Bogdan Świerczakowski, Judge of the Court of Appeal

having examined on 28th September 2022 in Warsaw at a session in camera the case brought by (…) Club LLC LP with its registered office in W. against the State Treasury – the Prime Minister, the State Treasury – the Minister of Health, the State Treasury – the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration

as a result of the respondent’s complaint against the decision of the Regional Court in Warsaw dated 16th May 2022, ref. no. II C 225/21,

decides to:

  1. dismiss the complaint;
  2. leave the decision on the costs of the complaint proceedings to the court of first instance in the decision concluding the proceedings.