Collyer-Bristow escapes damages for negligence

City practice Collyer-Bristow and leading divorce barrister Martin Pointer QC have successfully defended a negligence action brought by a former client.

The client, Corrine Green, claimed that she should have been advised to accept a settlement offer made by her former husband during her divorce proceedings.

Green rejected the offer which included a house valued at u281,000 plus a u50,000 cash payment.

While the presiding judge, Mr Justice Douglas Brown, found that Pointer and "magic circle" member Jeremy Levison, who was a partner at Collyer-Bristow at the time, provided some wrong advice, he held that she was not entitled to damages.

He said it would be wrong if she could obtain by way of damages in a negligence case that which she was never truly entitled to have by way of financial ancillary relief from her former husband.

In the judgment, Judge Brown refers to Green's "lies and deception" and that she failed to disclose crucial information to Pointer and Collyer-Bristow.