A plaintiff, represented by Atty. Michał Sikora from the law firm Budzowska Fiutowski & Partners, was the company which is the leading Polish manufacturer of technical products of silicone, rubber and latex, operating both on the Polish and foreign markets. The case concerned compensatory claims in connection with the improper performance of the sale agreement and quality assurance agreement. The subject of both contracts was the coordinate measuring machine, designed to provide the plaintiff with highly accurate measurement using contact and contactless method; while to a lesser extent the litigation concerned the refund of undue benefits that the plaintiff was forced to pay (subject to refund) to the defendant. The latter demand made by the defendant, in the view of the Courts of a lower and higher instance, proved to be unfounded. Except for the facts related to the very demonstration of the defectiveness of the measuring machine (among others based on private expert opinions and the opinion prepared by forensic science institute), the Courts also aimed to determine which entity was the guarantor of the quality of the item sold, i.e. whether it was the manufacturer of the measuring machine (as claimed by the defendant) or the seller of the machine (as, in turn, argued by the plaintiff and, subsequently, confirmed by Courts of both instances).

The case found its finale on May 22, 2015, when the Court of Appeal in Krakow, I Civil Division, sustained in its entirety the appeal filed by the plaintiff. The appeal was based on the claim for the award of statutory interest on compensation. The Court in its entirety dismissed the appeal filed by the defendant (made against the judgment of the District Court in Krakow as of 24 November 2014). Consequently, the Court of Appeal upheld the judgement of the Court of first instance which was favourable to BFP’s Client, in addition to awarding to the plaintiff the statutory interest on the awarded compensation for the period between the call for payment, addressed to the defendant still at the pre-trial stage, and the date of the judgment of the Court of first instance. 

The total amount to be awarded to the law firm’s Client amounts to almost one million zlotys.

The legal issues determined by the Court include, among others, the determination by the Courts of both instances, that the damage on the part of the plaintiff, being the purchaser of the measuring machine, corresponds to the difference between the price paid for the machine (the output value of the machine) and the value of the machine with regard to its defectiveness.

The proceedings before the Court of first instance took more than two years, and together with the appellate proceedings the litigation took two and a half years. The judgment of the Court of Appeal in Kraków is final and binding.