Estranged couple accidentally divorced after 21 years thanks to law firm’s computer error

An estranged couple was accidentally divorced when a London law firm mixed up their information with another pair’s — an error a judge says cannot be reversed.

The couple, known as Mr. and Ms. Williams’ in court proceedings, were married 21 years but separated last year and stlll negotiating their finances heading toward an official split when the premature clerical error was made.

Lawyers at Vardags, which was representing the wife, were attempting to file a final order of divorce for a different client when they accidentally did so for the Williamses in October, the Times of UK reported Monday.

Vardags, founded by Ayesha Vardag, a lawyer known as the “Diva of Divorce,” has worked for a slew of high-profile clients, according to the outlet.

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The wronged pair’s divorce application was granted within 21 minutes, while the error was only discovered days later.

Lawyers at the firm scrambled to try to rescind the divorce order but their application as quickly rejected by Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the family-court division, who said there was public interest in respecting the “certainty and finality that flows from a divorce order and maintaining the status quo that it has established.”

His decision was slammed by Mrs. Williams, who told The Times she felt it was “a bad decision.

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“There has to be intention on the part of the couple,” the woman said of a divorce decree. “When it’s brought to the court’s attention that it was a mistake, and everyone accepts that, obviously it has to be undone. The principle of intention underpins the justice of our legal system.

“The state should not be divorcing people on the basis of a clerical error.”

Court staff acknowledged to Mrs. Williams that the mistake happens fairly frequently and should have been fixed but that since her husband formally took issue with it, the judge decided to issue a ruling.

The estranged wife said she could try to fight it but that ultimately, she got what she wanted, anyway.

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“It’s the kind of decision that I believe would be overturned in a higher court, but where the upshot is in reality that a wife who wanted a divorce has got one, why would that be worth doing in this case?” she said.

Still, “That means that, for now, our law says that you can be divorced by an error made on an online system,” she said. “And that’s just not right, not sensible, not justice.”