Władysław Ż. filed a lawsuit against Cezary T. for determining the infringement of personal rights and defamation of him with unfounded accusations of committing crimes, determining the unfoundedness of the statement about the alleged notification of the appropriate authorities about the crimes committed, awarding the defendant 10,000 PLN in compensation for the infringement of personal rights and defamation of him with a slanderous accusation, and obliging the defendant to publicly apologize in the content designated by the Court in a popular press with a reach of the capital city of Warsaw and the city of B., and in the event of the defendant refusing to publish the apology, the Court will perform this action at the defendant’s expense.
The defendant was married to the plaintiff’s daughter Sylwia T. in the period from April 2001 to February 2005. During the divorce proceedings, the plaintiff represented the daughter as her legal representative. The divorce action was filed by Cezary T. By the judgment of the District Court in W. of 17 February 2005, the divorce of the spouses Sylwia and Cezary T. was ruled due to the fault of both parties. On 17 February 2005, during the last divorce hearing – during the hearing, Cezary T. testified: „There was a burglary, I reported it to the appropriate authorities, my documents were missing. The burglary was committed by the defendant together with her parents. It was 2 weeks after 16 June 2002. The table and chairs were missing”. After the divorce verdict was announced, Sylwia T. filed a motion to correct and supplement the minutes of the hearing of 17 February 2005.
The presiding judge ordered the minutes to be corrected and supplemented, among other things, by entering the words „There was a burglary in the apartment where I live, I reported it to the appropriate authorities, my documents, my table and chairs were stolen. It happened 2 weeks after 16 June 2002 at 3 a.m., there are witnesses and the description of the defendant’s father matches” instead of „There was a burglary, I reported it to the appropriate authorities, my documents were stolen”.
In considering the described case concerning infringement of personal rights, the court found that there is no doubt that the defendant’s testimony, which was reflected in the minutes of the hearing of 17 February 2005 in the above-mentioned case, subsequently corrected by the order of the Presiding Judge of 28 February 2005, contained a negative assessment of the plaintiff’s conduct, because it suggested that he had broken into the defendant’s apartment, but in the opinion of the Court of Appeal, the term „burglary” used here cannot be identified with the definition of the offence contained in Article 279 of the Penal Code, or rather, as the District Court assumed, with the plaintiff’s emotional description of the situation he found in the apartment after his wife moved out: the prevailing mess and the circumstance of taking some of the things found there from the apartment, and it is not important here whether this circumstance was confirmed in the testimony of Sylwia T. in the divorce case, as the District Court erroneously assumed, which, however, had no impact on the resolution of the case. Such an allegation falls within the limits of acceptable conduct of the party giving testimony, provided that they are convinced of the truthfulness of their testimony and cannot be accused of absurdity or deliberate humiliation or harassment. Such an allegation fell within the framework of the legal order and, in the opinion of the defendant, served their interest as a party in divorce proceedings, which means that such conduct is not an unlawful act and does not justify the protection of personal rights. Even if the defendant notified law enforcement agencies of the crime and indicated the suspect, such action is also within the limits of the law. It could only exceed them if such notification and indication of a specific person suspected of committing the crime were made with an obviously bad intention and full awareness of the falsehood of such an allegation. In the contested statements, the defendant admittedly stated that he reported the burglary to the relevant authorities, but it is not possible to deduce from this which authorities he was referring to, and it is probable that since the disappearance concerned the documents of an ABW officer, the defendant reported this circumstance – as the District Court correctly assumed – to his superiors, and not to the Prosecutor’s Office or the Police, as the plaintiff claims.
In assessing whether a violation of personal rights occurred in a specific situation, the Court of Appeal shares the position of the Court of First Instance that this assessment should be made using objective criteria that take into account the feelings of the public, as well as generally accepted and customary standards of conduct. Contrary to the allegations in the appeal, it should be recognized that the plaintiff in the case did not prove that as a result of the defendant’s testimony, the sphere of his personal rights was violated, because, as the Court of First Instance correctly assumed, the assessment of whether there was a violation of dignity and honour cannot be made according to the measure of the individual sensitivity of the person concerned.
In assessing the defendant’s actions, one cannot ignore the fact that the testimony was given in a divorce case, which, pursuant to Article 427 The Code of Civil Procedure is held behind closed doors and, as it results from the minutes of the hearing, in addition to the parties to the proceedings, only their attorneys were present in the courtroom. The defendant’s statements questioned by the plaintiff were therefore not publicly disclosed and, sharing the assessment of the District Court, the Court of Appeal found that they could not have violated the plaintiff’s personal rights in the manner presented in the lawsuit.
Ultimately, the Court found that if the statements were given in a divorce case, which, pursuant to Article 427 of the Code of Civil Procedure, is held behind closed doors and, as it results from the minutes of the hearing, in addition to the parties to the proceedings, only their attorneys were present in the courtroom, then the defendant’s statements questioned by the plaintiff could not be considered publicly disclosed and thus – as slander and thus violate the plaintiff’s personal rights.
Judgment of the Court of Appeal in Warsaw of 3 April 2008, VI ACa 1369/07.