Multiplicity of Factual Grounds of an Action and Accumulation of Procedural Claims: Commentary on the Judgment of the Supreme Court of 28 August 2019 (IV CSK 255/18, LEX no. 2729030)

Abstract

In the commented judgment, the Supreme Court considered, among other things, if a situation in which the claimant formulates one claim, basing it on various sets of facts, could be recognized as an objective accumulation of claims. Assuming that the dissimilarity of the alternative factual grounds entails the emergence of two or more procedural claims, the Court concluded that the multiplicity of claims (objective accumulation of claims) occurs when the claims differ from each other either in terms of the content of the claims, or in terms of sets of factual circumstances which justify them, or simultanously by both of these elements. When submitting multiple claims, the claimant should specify precisely not only the content of each claim and the factual circumstances justifying it, but also specify the relationship between the accumulated claims. While the detailed threads of the quoted position should be partially approved, the underlying view assuming that the submission of one claim with multiple factual justification is equivalent to objective accumulation of procedural claims should be critically considered. This view does not seem to take into account the basic assumptions of the two-part – as is commonly accepted – construction of the subject of a civil trial, and at the same time it remains in a collision with the rules of procedural efficiency, especially in terms of the requirements for precision and accuracy in marking the claim, and, consequently, in terms of the effectiveness and correctness of further procedural steps aimed at recognizing the case.