A British couple was divorced by mistake due to a law firm’s error that a judge says can’t be reversed.
The couple, referred to as Mr. and Mrs. Williams by London’s high court, were in the process of ending their 21-year marriage but still tying up some loose ends, according to The Guardian.
Unfortunately, a lawyer for Mrs. Williams opened the wrong case file and finalized the divorce. The firm caught the mistake two days later, but a high court judge ruled the divorce was final and that’s that.
“There is a strong public policy interest in respecting the certainty and finality that flows from a final divorce order and maintaining the status quo that it has established,” said the judge.
He also shot down the “wrong button” defense, explaining, “Like many similar online processes, an operator may only get to the final screen where the final click of the mouse is made after traveling through a series of earlier screens.”
Williams’ lawyers disagreed with the ruling, saying, “The state should not be divorcing people on the basis of a clerical error. There has to be intention on the part of the person divorcing, because the principle of intention underpins the justice of our legal system.”