Often, the significance of a case is determined not by the monetary value of the dispute but by other circumstances. This is also the case here. Today, January 4, 2021, the firm was served a payment order in admonition proceedings issued by the District Court for Warsaw Śródmieście. The order was issued against the University of Warsaw. Its subject is the Court’s order to refund part of the tuition fees for part-time studies at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw. The basis for the lawsuit was the fact that in the summer semester of the 2019/2020 academic year, due to restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant portion of the semester’s classes did not take place or took place remotely with a significant deterioration in their educational value. The firm represented the plaintiff – a law student studying part-time.
I wrote about the Civil Code provisions providing the contracting party with specific rights to demand a reduction of fees for the service or even withdrawal from the contract already in March 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic.
A similar position was also taken by the – very recently active – President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection.
Of course, we expect the defendant, i.e., the University of Warsaw, to file an objection to this order within the statutory deadline and the case will probably go to trial in ordinary proceedings. However, the very fact that the court issued a payment order in admonition proceedings confirms that the presented legal argumentation and evidentiary material are coherent and convincing.
It is worth recalling that the court issues a payment order in admonition proceedings in cases where the plaintiff seeks a monetary claim, unless the claim is obviously unfounded or the statements of fact raise doubts. In other words, the court issues a payment order when the cited facts and legal arguments do not raise doubts.
I am now eagerly awaiting the expiry of the deadline for filing an objection to the payment order (two weeks). I also think that this payment order may encourage other students and parents of children using private education to exercise their rights under the Civil Code and request appropriate reductions in fees for educational services that were not de facto provided to them.
Especially since everyone would probably agree that the financial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic should be appropriately and in accordance with the principles of economic coexistence distributed between both parties to a given contractual relationship, and not only on one party – the weaker one, which is usually the consumer.
Paweł Osiński
Attorney