Publication date: November 04, 2026
The legal framework following the 2021 amendment and the resolution of a panel of seven judges of the Polish Supreme Court of 15 May 2025 (III CZP 22/24)
For years, the summons to a settlement attempt was the cheapest way for creditors to “renew” the limitation period under Polish law – a single application was enough for a claim to gain another full period of actionability. Since 30 June 2022, the rules of the game have changed: the summons no longer interrupts the running of the limitation period, but merely suspends it for the duration of the conciliation proceedings (Article 121(6) of the Civil Code). The effects of applications filed under the former provisions – which the courts will continue to assess for years to come – have meanwhile been settled by the resolution of a panel of seven judges of the Polish Supreme Court of 15 May 2025 (III CZP 22/24). In this article, we explain what exactly has changed, how to defend against instrumental settlement summonses, and what a creditor planning to pursue a claim must bear in mind today.
The summons to a settlement attempt (zawezwanie do próby ugodowej), governed by Articles 184-186 of the Code of Civil Procedure[1], is the simplest court-supervised mechanism for the amicable resolution of a civil dispute. For nearly two decades, however, the institution served in practice primarily a different purpose: it was an inexpensive and effective tool for interrupting the running of limitation periods. That state of affairs changed fundamentally on 30 June 2022, when the amendment to the Civil Code of 2 December 2021 entered into force[2]. Under Article 121(6) of the Civil Code, added at that time, a summons to a settlement attempt no longer interrupts the running of the limitation period, but merely suspends it for the duration of the conciliation proceedings.
The amendment did not, however, close the debate over the effects of summonses filed under the previous legal regime. Those disputes – concerning in particular the admissibility of examining the creditor’s actual purpose – were resolved only by the resolution of a panel of seven judges of the Supreme Court of 15 May 2025, case No. III CZP 22/24[3]. This article presents both legal regimes, discusses the evolution of the case law, and outlines the practical consequences of the current regulation for creditors and debtors.
Before the 2021 Amendment, the Civil Code contained no provision expressly addressing the effect of a summons to a settlement attempt on the running of the limitation period. That effect was derived from Article 123 § 1(1) of the Civil Code, under which the running of the limitation period is interrupted by any act performed before a court or another authority appointed to hear cases or enforce claims of a given kind, or before an arbitral tribunal, undertaken directly in order to pursue, establish, satisfy or secure a claim.
Beginning with the resolution of the Supreme Court of 28 June 2006, case No. III CZP 42/06[4], the view became firmly established in the case law that a summons to a settlement attempt constitutes precisely such an act and consequently interrupts the running of the limitation period[5]. Interruption meant – pursuant to Article 124 § 1 of the Civil Code – that upon conclusion of the conciliation proceedings the limitation period began to run anew in its entirety. A creditor filing an application shortly before the expiry of the period thus gained another full limitation period, irrespective of whether a settlement was actually reached.
The attractiveness of this mechanism quickly gave rise to the phenomenon of instrumental use of settlement summonses – in particular, the filing of successive applications in respect of the same claim solely in order to “renew” the limitation period repeatedly. The case law of the Supreme Court responded to this practice, but in an inconsistent manner, resulting in the emergence of two opposing lines of authority.
The restrictive line. In its judgment of 10 January 2017, case No. V CSK 204/16[6], the Supreme Court held that an act of the creditor interrupts the running of the limitation period only where it is undertaken directly in order to pursue, establish, satisfy or secure the claim. A summons whose sole purpose is to extend the period during which the claim remains actionable is contrary both to the underlying rationale of the institution of limitation and to the fundamental purpose of conciliation proceedings, which is to bring about a settlement. The court is in each case obliged to examine the actual purpose of the act, although – as the Court noted – there are no grounds for a generalised assumption that every successive summons serves solely to interrupt the limitation period. An analogous position was taken in the decision of 10 April 2018, case No. II CSK 694/17[7].
The most far-reaching procedural consequences were drawn by the Supreme Court in its judgment of 27 July 2018, case No. V CSK 384/17[8]. The Court held that a creditor who files an application not in order to conclude a settlement, but solely to interrupt the running of the limitation period, abuses a procedural right and acts contrary to good practice (Article 3 CCP). The court to which such an application is submitted should assess it not only in formal terms but also as to its admissibility and, upon finding an abuse, should reject the application by analogy to Article 199 § 1 in conjunction with Article 13 § 2 CCP, without allowing the conciliation proceedings to be conducted at all.
The formal line. A contrary view was expressed by the Supreme Court in its decision of 17 June 2021, case No. II CSKP 104/21[9]. According to that position, the qualification of an act as one “undertaken directly in order to pursue a claim” is general in nature and relates to the category of acts, not to the individual intentions of the applicant. Since the initiation of conciliation proceedings falls within the catalogue of acts referred to in Article 123 § 1(1) of the Civil Code, the creditor’s actual intentions are legally irrelevant, and the interrupting effect arises by operation of law (ex lege). The only relevant question is whether the application was filed effectively – that is, whether it was not returned or rejected and whether the conciliation proceedings were not discontinued.
Part of legal scholarship was likewise critical of the possibility of examining the purpose of a summons, pointing to the ambiguity of the criteria for assessing the applicant’s motivation and the absence of objective grounds on which it could be proven – all the more so given that, since the legislature requires the application to contain settlement proposals, the objective of reaching a settlement follows expressly from its very content[10].
The divergences described above were resolved by the resolution of a panel of seven judges of the Supreme Court of 15 May 2025, case No. III CZP 22/24, according to which, under the legal framework in force until 30 June 2022, an application for a summons to a settlement attempt interrupted the running of the limitation period of a claim, unless it follows from the circumstances in which the act was performed that it was not undertaken directly in order to pursue, establish, satisfy or secure the claim (Article 123 § 1(1) of the Civil Code).
The resolution is a compromise, yet in essence it rejects the automatism characteristic of the formal line. The Supreme Court emphasised that limitation is an important element of the legal system, ordering legal relations over time, and that a creditor should therefore not be able easily to avoid the consequences of its expiry. Accepting that the initiation of conciliation proceedings always interrupted the running of the limitation period would place an instrument designed to protect the debtor under the creditor’s exclusive control and would in effect circumvent the prohibition on extending limitation periods by legal act (Article 119 of the Civil Code). Condoning sham acts aimed solely at prolonging the debtor’s state of uncertainty would strike at the very ratio legis of the institution of limitation.
The wording of the operative part of the resolution (“unless it follows from the circumstances in which the act was performed…”) yields an important practical conclusion: the rule remains that the summons produces the effect of interrupting the limitation period, whereas the exclusion of that effect requires it to be demonstrated – on the basis of the circumstances of the specific case – that the summons was not aimed directly at the realisation of the claim. In practice, the burden of rebutting the effect therefore rests on the debtor challenging the interruption. Moreover, that assessment should be carried out not in the conciliation proceedings themselves, but in the subsequent proceedings on the merits in which the limitation defence is raised – the conciliation court has no instruments at its disposal to examine the objectives of the proceedings initiated by the application.
The significance of the resolution remains considerable today: although it concerns the pre-amendment legal framework, the length of limitation periods for property claims – in particular the six-year period – means that defences based on summonses filed before 30 June 2022 will continue to arise in litigation for many years to come.
The principal objective of the 2021 Amendment was to curb the practice of abusing settlement summonses. As stated in the explanatory memorandum to the bill, in view of the controversies surrounding creditors’ abuse of the institution of the summons to a settlement attempt, it was decided to limit the effect of filing such an application – as well as of initiating out-of-court mediation – on the running of the limitation period to its suspension for the duration of the conciliation or mediation proceedings[11].
Implementing that objective, the legislature added points 5 and 6 to Article 121 of the Civil Code, under which the running of the limitation period does not commence, and if commenced is suspended: in respect of claims covered by a mediation agreement – for the duration of the mediation (point 5), and in respect of claims covered by an application for a summons to a settlement attempt – for the duration of the conciliation proceedings (point 6). At the same time, Article 123 § 1(3) of the Civil Code, which provided for the interruption of the limitation period by the initiation of mediation, was repealed.
The practical difference between the two regimes is fundamental. Suspension merely “stops the clock”: upon conclusion of the conciliation proceedings, the limitation period continues to run, extended only by the duration of those proceedings – not anew. A creditor filing an application shortly before the expiry of the limitation period therefore gains only as much time as the conciliation proceedings lasted. The summons has thus ceased to function as a tool for deferring the decision to bring an action and has regained its original, conciliatory character.
Suspension occurs irrespective of the outcome of the conciliation proceedings – both where they end with a settlement and where no settlement is reached. What remains applicable, however, are the situations developed under the previous legal framework in which no effect on the running of the limitation period arises at all: the return of the application, its rejection, and the discontinuation of the conciliation proceedings[12]. The transitional rule should also be borne in mind: conciliation proceedings commenced and not concluded before 30 June 2022 remain governed by the previous provisions[13].
Under the current legal framework, the question arises whether the body of case law concerning the examination of the purpose of a summons remains relevant. The answer is, in principle, in the negative. While Article 123 § 1(1) of the Civil Code makes the interrupting effect conditional upon the act being undertaken “directly in order to pursue, establish, satisfy or secure a claim”, Article 121(6) of the Civil Code contains no such requirement[14]. It follows from the literal wording of the provision that the suspension of the limitation period arises from the mere fact that the claim is covered by the application for a summons, for the duration of the conciliation proceedings – without any examination of the applicant’s motivation. Decisions focusing on the purpose requirement therefore become moot at the level of suspension.
This weakening of the purpose-based scrutiny is systemically consistent with the weakening of the effect itself: suspension produces consequences far less favourable to the creditor than the former interruption, so the scope for abuse is correspondingly narrower. The legislature did not, however, introduce a rule under which the repeated initiation of conciliation proceedings in respect of the same claim could result in suspension only once – it therefore cannot be ruled out that a second and subsequent conciliation proceedings will likewise cause the limitation period to be suspended[15]. In extreme cases of instrumental use of the institution, the debtor is left with the plea of abuse of procedural rights under Article 4¹ CCP, although arguments based on the absence of an intention to pursue the claim may prove ineffective precisely because no such requirement appears in the wording of Article 121(6) of the Civil Code.
An application for a summons to a settlement attempt – irrespective of subject-matter jurisdiction – is filed with the district court (sąd rejonowy) of general venue for the opposing party or, where there are no grounds for establishing that venue, with the district court for the place of residence or registered office of the summoning party (Article 185 § 1 CCP). The summons must concisely identify the case and present settlement proposals; Article 130 CCP applies mutatis mutandis to a summons failing to meet these requirements (Article 185 § 1¹ CCP). The requirement to present settlement proposals, introduced in 2019, is of more than merely formal significance – the precise identification of the claims covered by the application delimits the scope of the suspension of the limitation period, which extends only to the “claims covered by the application”.
Since 2019, the cost of using the institution has also risen significantly: the fee on the application amounts to one-fifth of the fee that would be payable on a statement of claim[16], whereas previously it was a fixed fee of no more than PLN 300. The increase in the fee, alongside the change in the substantive-law effect, constitutes the second pillar of discouraging the purely tactical use of settlement summonses. Finally, pursuant to Article 186 CCP, a party’s failure to appear entails cost consequences: if the summoning party fails to appear at the hearing, the court will, at the request of the opposing party, order the summoning party to reimburse the costs occasioned by the settlement attempt; if the opposing party fails to appear, the court will, at the request of the summoning party who subsequently brings an action, take the costs occasioned by the settlement attempt into account in the decision concluding the proceedings.
The current legal position may be summarised as follows. First, since 30 June 2022 a summons to a settlement attempt suspends – rather than interrupts – the running of the limitation period for the claims covered by the application, and does so solely for the duration of the conciliation proceedings (Article 121(6) of the Civil Code). Second, this effect arises irrespective of the applicant’s motivation, but does not arise where the application is returned or rejected or where the proceedings are discontinued. Third, with respect to summonses filed before 30 June 2022 – which will continue to be assessed in pending disputes for a long time to come – binding guidance is provided by resolution III CZP 22/24: the summons interrupted the running of the limitation period unless it follows from the circumstances of its filing that it was not aimed directly at the realisation of the claim, with that examination being carried out by the court in the proceedings on the merits.
For creditors, this means that the summons must be treated as a genuine conciliatory instrument rather than a substitute for a litigation decision: any calculation of the limitation period must today assume no more than a short-lived suspension of its running. For debtors, in turn, resolution III CZP 22/24 opens – in cases assessed under the former legal framework – a realistic avenue for contesting the effects of summonses filed solely in order to extend the actionability of a claim, provided that the relevant circumstances are demonstrated in the course of the proceedings.
[1]Act of 17 November 1964 – Code of Civil Procedure (consolidated text: Journal of Laws of 2024, item 1568, as amended), hereinafter: CCP.
[2]Act of 2 December 2021 amending the Act – Civil Code, the Act – Code of Civil Procedure and certain other acts (Journal of Laws of 2021, item 2459), hereinafter: the 2021 Amendment.
[3]Resolution of a panel of seven judges of the Supreme Court of 15 May 2025, case No. III CZP 22/24.
[4]Resolution of the Supreme Court of 28 June 2006, case No. III CZP 42/06, OSNC 2007, No. 4, item 54.
[5]Judgment of the Supreme Court of 25 November 2009, case No. II CSK 259/09; judgment of the Supreme Court of 20 July 2017, case No. I CSK 716/16.
[6]Judgment of the Supreme Court of 10 January 2017, case No. V CSK 204/16.
[7]Decision of the Supreme Court of 10 April 2018, case No. II CSK 694/17.
[8]Judgment of the Supreme Court of 27 July 2018, case No. V CSK 384/17.
[9]Decision of the Supreme Court of 17 June 2021, case No. II CSKP 104/21; similarly, judgment of the Supreme Court of 12 January 2023, case No. II CSKP 776/22.
[10]P. Buczkowski, Zawieszenie biegu przedawnienia w prawie cywilnym w świetle noweli z grudnia 2021 r. [Suspension of the running of limitation periods in civil law in light of the December 2021 amendment], “Ius Novum” 2022, No. 3, p. 96.
[11]Explanatory memorandum to the government bill of 2 December 2021 amending the Act – Civil Code, the Act – Code of Civil Procedure and certain other acts, Sejm paper No. 1344, 9th term of the Sejm.
[12]Cf. judgment of the Supreme Court of 27 July 2018, case No. V CSK 384/17 – the Court’s considerations concerning situations in which no effect on the running of the limitation period arises remain applicable, mutatis mutandis, under the current legal framework.
[13]Article 30 of the 2021 Amendment: mediations and conciliation proceedings commenced and not concluded before the date of entry into force of the Act remain governed by the previous provisions.
[14]Kodeks cywilny. Komentarz [Civil Code. Commentary], series ed. K. Osajda, volume ed. W. Borysiak, commentary on Article 121 of the Civil Code, point C.11.
[15]Kodeks cywilny. Komentarz [Civil Code. Commentary], series ed. K. Osajda, volume ed. W. Borysiak, commentary on Article 121 of the Civil Code, point C.12.
[16]Article 19(3)(3) of the Act of 28 July 2005 on court costs in civil cases (consolidated text: Journal of Laws of 2024, item 959, as amended), as amended by the Act of 4 July 2019 (Journal of Laws, item 1469).