Fees Paid in Civil Cases in the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Poland (Until 1876)

Abstract

The article concerns costs borne by parties to court cases in the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Poland (until the unification of the Polish judiciary with the Russian system in the 1870s). Litigation costs included: court fees, attorneys’ and experts’ fees, travel expenses incurred by the parties and other persons whose appearance was necessary, daily allowances for the parties, witnesses and court officers, and costs of correspondence (delivered by court officers). The most important costs were the court fees, which were paid using stamped paper.
The author focused on the content of three acts which comprehensively regulated the collection of stamp duty (acts of 1809, 1811 and 1863). In property litigations, the amount of stamp duty depended on the value of the disputed subject matter, while it had a regressive character (the bigger the claim, the lower the fees). However, in cases concerning non-financial claims, the fee depended on the affluence of the parties or was set as a lump sum.