Woman claims lawyers should have told her
divorce would end her marriage Seeking damages for professional
negligence, the British woman argued that
the lawyers should have made it clear that a
divorce would result in her marriage being
terminated .....A British woman cited the fact that
her lawyers had not advised her that divorce
proceedings would end her marriage in a case of
professional negligence against them ......A British woman attempted to sue her former
lawyers for professional negligence, claiming
that, alongside a number of other allegations,
they failed to advise that finalising divorce
proceedings would inevitably cause her marriage
to end. The curious case - made against two solicitor
firms - had already been rejected by the court,
but was revealed in the transcript of a later
appeal by the claimant against the dismissal of
other aspects of her case. Jane Mulcahy had argued that the lawyers should
have made it clear that a divorce would cause her
marriage to be terminated - something which she
apparently wanted to avoid. The lawyers failed to regard her Roman Catholic
faith and should have recommended judicial
separation - a step down from full divorce - as an
alternative course of action, she said. The allegation was revealed in a subsequent
appeal court judgment last month, in which Lord
Justice Briggs said: “The most striking of Mrs
Mulcahy's many allegations of negligence against
her solicitors was that, having regard to her
Roman Catholic faith, Mrs Boots had failed to give her the advice which was requisite in view of
her firmly held belief in the sanctity of
marriage… “…either in terms of the alternative of judicial
separation, or about the impossibility of
pursuing divorce proceedings to a clean break
settlement, without thereby inevitably bringing
about the final termination of her marriage,
which she wished to avoid.” The appeal was also dismissed