Ribet Myles partner Julian Ribet wins high profile litigation in Williams v Williams ‘wrong divorce’ case

This week has seen significant levels of media interest in a court case won by Julian Ribet, one of the founding partners of Ribet Myles.

This was a divorce case in which Julian was instructed by Mr Williams. In October 2023, solicitors for Mrs Williams mistakenly applied to finalise Mr and Mrs Williams’ divorce, despite having no instructions to do so. The final order of divorce was granted on the same day, divorcing the parties.

Having realised their error, the solicitors for Mrs Williams then made an application to rescind the final divorce order – in the first instance without providing notice to ourselves as would be usual and expected.

Mrs Williams’ solicitors were initially successful, with the court considering the application on paper and without hearing from Mr Williams’ representatives and then setting aside the final order of divorce. Her case was then that the parties remained married.

On behalf of our client, we applied to the court to ask that the wife’s solicitors’ application to set aside the final order of divorce be listed for a hearing to include ourselves, to give our client the opportunity to put his case, namely that the order made without notice should itself be set aside meaning that the parties were in fact divorced.

The matter therefore revolved around whether it was possible to set aside a final order of divorce where the application was properly made, albeit on behalf of the wrong parties.

Signifying the importance of the case and on the basis that there were no previous judgments or precedents dealing with these circumstances, the matter was heard by the President of the Family Division of the High Court, Sir Andrew McFarlane.

His judgment was that the final order stood – and that the parties were and remain divorced. Julian commented

“This matter was important because for a number of months our client did not know whether he was divorced or not. His case was that he was divorced.
“Although some commentators in the media as well as other lawyers have stated that this was a simple administrative error that could and should have been easily put right by the Court, that isn’t the case and isn’t how the law actually works. The Court did not make an administrative error. Mrs Williams’ solicitors submitted a properly constituted application for a final divorce order and the Court quite correctly and efficiently processed that application and made the order that they asked for. Their error was to submit the application on behalf of the wrong client.
“The law must be certain. When it comes to marital status, clarity is fundamental. On the occasion of a change in status as, in this case, married to divorced, that change potentially has knock-on effects on things like inheritance under your will, your tax status and what might happen in the event of death in relation to your pension benefits.
“We are pleased to have succeeded in upholding our client’s position at the hearing before the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane and to have confirmed his legal status - namely that he is divorced.”

This case been covered widely by the press, including the BBC, The Times, The Guardian, The Evening Standard, The Daily Mail, The Sun and The Law Gazette.

The original judgment can also be read on the National Archive.

Please contact Victoria Moffatt, LexRex Communications with media enquiries.