HEROINE OF KATOWICE

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28906, 28 May 1959, Page 2

HEROINE OF KATOWICE

Woman Sues State Shop

(N.Z Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, May 27. The usually off-hand and sometimes even contemptuous attitude of State-owned shops towards their customers is the subject of constant complaint in Eastern Europe, both privately and in the press, according to the Vienna correspondent of “The Times,” who describes a case in which a Polish woman has made herself the heroine of shoppers all over the country by successfully bringing an action against the State trade network in Katowice for refusing tosell her a dress displayed in the window of one of its shops. The correspondent says the District Court awarded the woman the symbolic one zloty damages she sought together with 8 per cent, interest on it for every day that passed since she took her case to Court. She also asked that the State body should pay costs and should sell her the dress and pay 100 zloties compensation for every day’s defay.

These demands she withdrew, however, as the shop delivered the dress by special messenger on hearing it was being sued. The woman originally had fancied the dress in the window, but had been told there was none in stock. When she demanded the one on show, she was told it would be against ministerial regulations.

She went to a lawyer and sued the shop on the ground that to display an article was legally an offer of sale and no regulation, ministerial or otherwise, could change the law. The case had the full sympathy of the Polish Lawyers’ Association.

The correspondent adds that as a test of the right of the ordinary citizen in a Communist country to sue a Government enterprise, the case is expected to improve the manners of State employees or at any rate give customers some useful ammunition for arguments across the counter.