A businessman whose dangerous driving caused him to kill a pensioner and injure her cousin has lost a second legal bid to sue his doctor.
Vincent Friel, 48, was jailed for three years after jurors convicted him of ploughing into Charlotte Collins, 68, at a pedestrian crossing near Glasgow’s Silverburn shopping centre.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard how she died shortly afterwards and her 69-year-old relative Margaret Haldane was seriously injured.
Friel’s defence for the crash was that he had passed out at the wheel of his 4x4 and went through a red light.
His lawyers told jurors that Friel, of Rutherglen, was taking blood pressure medication at the time of the offence.
He was also taking Viagra and headache medication at the time of the offence.
His lawyers claimed that the combined medication caused his blood pressure to drop to such a low level that he fainted and wasn’t in control of his actions at the time of the offence in January 2014.
Jurors rejected the claims and found him guilty on charges of causing death and injury by driving dangerously.
Last year, lawyers for Friel instructed lawyers to go to the Court of Session in a bid to claim £500,000 of damages from his GP Dr Iain Brown.
He claimed that Dr Brown was negligent to prescribe him Tildium - a drug used to treat high blood pressure.
His lawyers claimed that his doctors actions in giving him the drug caused him to pass out at the wheel.
Judge Lady Carmichael rejected the Court of Session bid saying that were to succeed, it would undermine his criminal conviction.
She wrote: “I am satisfied that Scots law recognises that it is contrary to public policy to allow a civil action to proceed in which the pursuer mounts a collateral challenge to his conviction.”
On Thursday, judges at the Inner House of the Court of Session - Scotland’s highest civil appeal court - ruled against Mr Friel.
However, the judges concluded that Lady Carmichael was wrong to dismiss the action on the basis that a civil action would undermine his criminal conviction.
Lord Carloway ruled that his colleague was wrong because the civil action concerned Dr Brown’s allegedly negligent treatment of Mr Friel’s condition. He said the action itself did not seek to challenge Mr Friel’s High Court conviction.
He wrote: “The action is not an abuse of process. It should not have been dismissed on that ground.
“The issue is one of relevancy, viz can the pursuer succeed after proof in a case against the defender for damages in respect of the negligent prescription of a drug when a jury in the High Court has found it proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the damages averred were not caused by the effects of the drug, but the pursuer’s own (conscious) dangerous driving?
“For these reasons, although the reclaiming motion is in substance refused, the court will recall the interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary dated March 22 2019, sustain the defender’s first plea in law and dismiss the action.”
