They mistakenly pressed the wrong button: a couple who had been married for 21 years was divorced in Britain (2 photos)

The lawyers claim they used the portal "without the instructions or authority of their client", but the online system worked at its "customary speed" and issued the Williamses' divorce decree within 21 minutes.





Lawyers at London firm Vardags wrongly filed for divorce for a couple who had been married for 21 years, but the court refused to overturn the decision.

The lawyers intended to file for divorce for another client "but inadvertently opened the electronic case Williams v. Williams and applied for a final judgment in that case."

Mr and Mrs Williams had been married for 21 years and their case was pending with the same law firm because they were still trying to negotiate financial arrangements for their divorce.

Lawyers for Vardags claim they used the online portal “without the instructions or authority of their client,” but the online system operated at its “customary speed” and issued the Williamses’ divorce decree within 21 minutes.



The lawyers realized their mistake two days later and asked the High Court to overturn the final divorce decree. They attributed the error to someone at Vardagsi pressing the wrong button and argued that since the final order had been submitted in error, it should be set aside.

But the court rejected the application.

“There is a strong public law interest in respecting the certainty and finality that flows from a final decree of divorce and maintaining the status quo it has established,” the judge's ruling said.

He added that the impression that an online divorce portal "will make a final decision on divorce if someone does not want to get divorced by simply 'pressing the wrong button' needs to be corrected."

“When an error is brought to the attention of the court and everyone accepts that an error was made, it is obvious that it must be corrected... This means that while the law says that you can be scammed because of an error made in the online system. And this is simply wrong, unreasonable, unfair,” the law firm that made the mistake was outraged by the court’s decision.