Detained nurse suing Chris Christie and New Jersey

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and a New York firm filed the federal civil rights lawsuit in Newark for Kaci Hickox. New Jersey’s former health department commissioner, Mary O’Dowd, and two other state health officials were also named as defendants in the suit.

Hickox, who became known in the media as the “Ebola nurse”, is seeking compensatory and punitive damages of at least $250,000, Siegel said.

Hickox was forced into quarantine in 2014 after returning the United States from West Africa where she was treating Ebola patients. After serving there when she made her comeback via Newark Liberty worldwide Airport, she was stopped and interrogated and sent to a tent placed outside a Newark hospital. Hickox, who lives in Oregon, shared, “I felt like I was being manipulated”. This plan was criticized by the White House and many medical experts.

“My liberty, my interests and consequently my civil rights were ignored because a few ambitious governors saw an opportunity to use an age-old political tactic: fear”, Hickox said in a statement Thursday.

If Kaci Hickox primarily relies upon the claim that her 80-hour detention was unreasonable, she will nearly certainly lose, since public health officials have wide discretion in combating life-and-death health hazards, especially when so numerous key parameters – e.g., how easily was the disease spread, how long could a symptom-free person remain contagious, etc. – couldn’t be known with any reasonable certainty. This time, as Sweeney’s own gubernatorial run has intensified parallel to Christie’s presidential run, Kean sided with the Republican governor. Christie’s office isn’t commenting on the pending legal matter, a spokesman said.

Christie at the time argued he was doing what was best for the health and safety of those in the region. Arguably, the ordeal has left Hickox with not only emotional scars, but also a nickname that may sound uncomfortable to people close to her: “Ebola nurse”. She says they unlawfully detained her. Christie said “get in line” when asked about it at the time. She contends that upon her arrival in Newark her temperature with an inaccurate temporal scanner, which showed she had a fever. Hickox was taken to the hospital in an ambulance escorted by eight police cars with lights flashing and sirens blaring.

Her lawsuit lays out a series of temperature readings elevated when checked with a temporal thermometer but normal when taken orally. The next day, Christie described her as “obviously ill”. She said her mom called her, afraid she might be sick because of Christie’s comment. She then was driven to Maine, where she decided against following the state’s voluntary quarantine. Hickox tested negative for Ebola, but a state epidemiologist told officials in an email that she should be “kept in isolation and observe[d] for 72 hours”.