Jennifer Nicholson-White

Legal 500 UK Bar 2022

Personal Injury and Medical Negligence Band 2 Junior

‘Compassionate with clients, has the attention to detail required in high value and complex cases and provides clear and concise advice.‘

Chambers and Partners UKBar Guide 2022

Personal Injury – Up & Coming Junior

“Jennifer Nicholson has a varied personal injury practice and regularly acts for both defenders and pursuers. She is noted for her expertise in claims arising from accidents at work or on the road.

Strengths: “Her attention to detail is second to none. She’s also intelligent, hard-working and easy to speak with. In court she’s very persuasive, and her written work is immaculate.” “She is a very proactive advocate and a good team player.”

Recent work: Acted for the defending insurer in a claim arising from a road traffic accident in which the family sought damages under the Damages (Scotland) Act 2011.”

Widdowson v Liberty Insurance NHS Grampian NHS Highland [2021] CSOH 15
Acted as junior counsel (to Michael Stuart QC) for the insurers of a deceased driver who had caused an accident, on New Year’s day, striking another vehicle and injuring a passenger within. The injured man was taken to Dr Gray’s Hospital, admitted overnight but discharged the next day. The following evening he was admitted to Raigmore hospital where he was operated on several days later but died on 11 January. 

The insurers of the driver who caused the accident and the health boards responsible for the hospitals admitted negligence and liability to pay damaged to the deceased’s family. Quantum of the claim was agreed. The case went to Proof to determine the issue of the appointment between the defenders. The Court apportioned liability at 70:15:15 on the basis that the blameworthiness and causative potency of the driver’s actions were significantly greater than the negligent doctors. Although there were opportunities to save the deceased’s life after the accident, the driver had inflicted the injuries which ultimately, untreated, proved fatal. 

The case underlines that the exercise of apportionment involves assessing the relative blameworthiness and causative potency of each defender on the particular facts and circumstances of the specific case. However, the Court made a notable distinction between “the significant difference between the driver’s positive act on the one hand and the omissions, well intended, of the medical professionals in the context of a complex decision-making process on the other.” 

The case is important because, whilst it illustrates that each case depends on its own particular facts and circumstances, it also reinforces a general principle consistent with other case law namely that “failing to take positive action that would have saved someone’s life [is] not the same as committing an act that caused death.”  Thompson v Toorenburgh (1973) 50 DLR.

The Court also held that expert evidence about the extent and quality of a departure from standard practice by medical professionals was not admissible (Kennedy v Cordia [2016] UKSC 6 applied).

Hughes v Turning Point Scotland [2019] CSOH 42
Acted as junior counsel for the pursuers (to Lauren Sutherland QC) who were family of deceased alcoholic who died whilst accessing help with detoxify from alcohol. Pursuers unsuccessful. Court held that although Turning Point had assumed some responsibility for the deceased, their actions did not amount to a breach of their duty of care.

Karen Boyle v West Calder Medical Practice [2019] SC Edin 71

Acted as junior counsel for the pursuer (to Una Doherty QC) in the first medical negligence case to run to Proof in ASPIC. Pursuer unsuccessful. Court held the GP had not been negligent to fail to suspect Cushings Disease.

George Andrews v GGHB[2019] CSOH 31
Acted as junior counsel for the pursuer (to Andrew Young QC) before Lord Pentland in 2 week proof. Pursuer successful. Awarded damages for clinical negligence of hospital doctor who didn’t admit seriously ill patient who then died.

Lamb v Wray 2014 S.L.T. (Sh Ct), S.C.L.R. 303, G.W.D. 40-765 
Successfully represented the defender in an action for damages arising out of alleged clinical negligence at Edinburgh Sheriff Court

SB v Edinburgh City Council [2015] CSOH 120  
Petition for judicial review presented in the instance of a father against a local authority concerning decisions the local authority took in respect of where 2 children should reside in their best interests. Junior counsel with Ailsa Carmichael QC.

SB v Edinburgh City Council [2015] CSIH 84 
Successfully representing the respondents before the Inner House without Senior Counsel.

Linda Henderson v Kongsberg [2022] ABE-PD50-19
In this case where the pursuer seeks damages arising out of harassment and bullying at work, the defenders took the case to debate arguing it should be dismissed on the grounds of lack of specification and irrelevancy.

The Court refused to dismiss the action on either the statutory case under Section 8 of the Protection from Harrassment Act 1997 or the common law case.

In relation to the statutory case, the Court was satisfied that none of the 3 questions identified by the Inner House in Marinello v City of Edinburgh Council 2011 SC 736) could be answered in the negative without enquiry into the facts and it could not therefore be said that the case was irrelevant.

So far as the common law case was concerned, the Court found, taking the pursuer’s case at its highest on the pleadings, it was reasonably foreseeable that the pursuer would suffer a psychiatric injury as a reaction to the pressures in the workplace, in particular the bullying complained of.

Fenrir Thorvaldsen v Dundee City Council [2021] CSOH 120
Acted for the successful defenders in this Court of Session action where an employee sued his employers for over £280,000 following an accident at work. Liability for a wooden partition falling and striking the pursuer on the head, rendering him briefly unconscious, had been admitted at an early stage in the proceedings. The defenders’ case was that the pursuer’s injuries were limited to a minor head injury and associated post-concussive symptoms, all which resolved within, at most, 7 weeks. The pursuer claimed that his symptoms have never resolved, that he suffers from debilitating headaches and an exacerbation of his poor mental health as a result of the accident. The Court agreed with the defenders that the pursuer had suffered a minor head injury and post-concussion syndrome lasting, at most, 7 weeks. Damages were restricted to solatium for a minor head injury and services totaling £5,250 plus interest.

SD v Graham’s Dairies [2016] CSOH 151
Successfully represented the pursuer as Junior Counsel with Robert Milligan QC at the Court of Session. The case is significant having regard to the Court’s interpretation of the phrase “living with the injured person as husband or wife” in the context of section 13(1)(b) of the Administration of Justice Act 1982 and the consequent award for s8 services.

Waton’s Executor v Greater Glasgow Health Board 2016 G.W.D. 22-392

Successfully represented the pursuer as Junior Counsel at Debate in the Court of Session where the defenders sought dismissal. The Court held that he pursuer’s averments were not lacking in specification nor were they irrelevant. The defenders had overstretched the plea of lack of specification.

FAI into the Death of Christina Anne Wilson
Inquiry regarding death in a Care Home. No fault found. For the Heath Board.

SB v Edinburgh City Council [2015] CSOH 120 
Petition for judicial review presented in the instance of a father against a local authority concerning decisions the local authority took in respect of where 2 children should reside in their best interests. Junior counsel with Ailsa Carmichael QC.

SB v Edinburgh City Council [2015] CSIH 84
Successfully representing the respondents before the Inner House without Senior Counsel.