In a decision dated September 12, 2018, ref. II SA/Wr 493/18, the Voivodship Administrative Court in Wroclaw ruled that reorganization related to the adjustment of the applicant’s activities to the requirements of GDPR is a sufficient premise to make the absence of fault probable, and thus provides grounds for restoring the party’s deadline to take a procedural action.
In the case at hand, the housing community (plaintiff) failed to comply with the administrative court’s request to submit documents, including the management assignment agreement. As a result of the ineffective deadline, the administrator representing the complaining community filed a motion to restore the deadline. The grounds for the request indicated that a reorganization was underway at the company in connection with bringing the manager’s activities into compliance with the requirements of GDPR. In the course of reorganization, a folder with management contracts had been lost. The documents were found, but the deadline set by the court already passed.
Referring to the circumstances stated by the applicant in the application for reinstatement of the deadline, the administrative court found that they constituted a sufficient indication to make probable lack of fault in the deadline. The decision in question deviates from the established line of jurisprudence, according to which only circumstances that are completely independent and unforeseeable justify the assessment of a party’s lack of fault in the failure to meet the deadline within the meaning of Article 86 § 1 of the Act – Law on Proceedings before Administrative Courts.