The seller’s claims regarding the defective nature of the thing sold – a new quality?

The Consumer Rights Directive (CRD) required businesses across the EU to comply with its requirements from 13 June 2014. EU Member States have takenvarious approaches to implementing the new legislation. The Polish Act on Consumer Rights, which transposes the CRD, came into force on 25 December2014. The newly introduced Article 576 (1) of the CC provides that, if the thing did not have the characteristics it should have had in accordance with its intended purpose or in accordance with assurances made in public, or has been issued in an incomplete condition, then the seller that incurred the costs as a result of the consumer exercising its rights under a warranty for physical defects, may request the redress of the damage suffered from one of the previous sellers, as a result of the actions or omissions of which the thing became defective.

Posted on 29/07/2015 by Aleksandra Kunkiel-Kryńska in Consumer Law

Act on Consumer Rights Enacted

A few days ago, on 24 June 2014, the Act on Consumer Rights was finally published. The Act transposes the Consumer Rights Directive and re-transposes the Consumer Sales Directive to Polish law. The Act was adopted on 30 May 2014 and it will come into force six month after its publication, in December 2014.

The vast majority of rules of the Consumer Rights Directive have been transposed outside of the Civil Code (although, during the work on the transposition, there were voices suggesting its inclusion into the Civil Code). Only a few rules of a general contractual character are going to be included into the Civil Code.

Posted on 03/07/2014 by Aneta Wiewiórowska-Domagalska in Consumer Law

New rules regarding the concentration of procedural material

By Act of 16 September 2011 (Dz. U. 2011, no 233, item 1381) a vast reform of general and enforcement proceedings was adopted by the Polish Parliament. The Act entered into force on 3^rd May 2012. Among many changes introduced by this Act, an emphasis should be put on the new rules of presenting facts and evidence by the parties. The reform of 16 September aims at introducing a general framework which would facilitate a more efficient concentration of the procedural material. The goal of the new regulation consists in introducing a tool which would apply not only to general examination proceedings, but also to the so-called separate (special) procedures and to the non-litigious proceedings.The new regulation endeavors to encourage the parties to provide facts and evidence at an adequate time (i.e. as early as possible) and thus contribute to a smooth and efficient course of the proceedings.

Posted on 18/05/2014 by Agnieszka Gołąb in Civil Procedure

Liability of Legatees of Specific Bequests for Estate Debts under the Polish Law of Succession

The Act Amending the Civil Code and Several Other Acts of 18 March 2011 (Dz.U. No 85, item 458) introduced the construction of a specific bequest to Polish law. This institution – based on the Roman law concept of legatum per vindicationem – was not regulated in the Civil Code of the Republic of Poland of 23 April 1964 (the Polish Civil Code, CC) nor in the Decree of 8 October 1946 – the Law of Succession (Dz.U. No 60, item 328 as amended), due to the fact that the Polish Codification Commission decided to give stronger protection to creditors of the deceased than to legatees. The Polish legislator, when deciding to introduce the construction of a specific bequest into the Civil Code, also passed on the opportunity to explicitly regulate deathbed donations (donatio mortis causa) or the testamentary division of the inheritance.

Posted on 18/05/2014 by Witold Borysiak in Inheritance

Actio de effusis vel deiectis – the boundaries of flexibility

Article 433 of the Polish Civil Code embraces the classical construction of liability for damages caused by objects or liquids falling out from a room. Following the classical pattern of the Roman actio de effusis vel deiectis, the Code tightens considerably the liability in comparison to Article 415 CC, setting out a general obligation to compensate for damage caused by an unlawful deed, as long as the culprit remains in the wrong. The peculiar tort in question, on the other hand, awards the right to claim compensation from every person who occupies the room, regardless of their fault (which clearly rates this provision in the Polish doctrine under what is known as “liability upon the risk basis”). Among the relieving circumstances, the statute rates only force majeure, the exclusive fault of the victim or a third party for whose deeds the resident does not bear liability. Read more

Posted on 17/05/2014 by Mateusz Grochowski in Contract Law

The Regulation of Motherhood in the Polish Family and Guardianship Code

The regulation introduced to the Polish Family and Guardianship Code by the law of 6 November 2008, which entered into force on 13 June 2009 (the newly added section “Motherhood” encompassing Articles 61⁹ – 61¹⁶; Journal of Laws of 2008 No 220 item 1431), is entirely devoted to the hitherto ignored issue of maternal descent. The reform is primarily a somewhat preventive reaction to the expansion of assisted reproductive technology (ART), which enables a woman who is either unwilling or incapable of carrying and giving birth to a child to provide her egg for fertilisation, which is then planted into another woman’s womb. One of the major social effects of the new technique is the possible split of the natural motherly “functions”, hitherto vested in one person, between the genetic mother, who provides the egg for insemination, and the biological, or surrogate mother, who carries and bears the baby.

Posted on 17/05/2014 by Jakub Petkiewicz in General Issues

Transmission servitude – a new limited real right

On 3 August 2008, a new regulation was introduced in the Polish Civil Code in Articles 305 (1) – 305 (4), creating a new legal institution (a new limited real right), namely the transmission servitude. A transmission servitude is established for the benefit of a business entity. It constitutes an encumbrance (in the strict sense of the word) of the servient real property, (a real property necessary for the sake of transmission, e.g. to locate transmission utilities). The legislator did not specify who the business entity may be, but the legal doctrine has developed the concept of “transmission entity”. Read more

Posted on 17/05/2014 by Grzegorz Matusik in Property Law

law reform