The nurse who sued New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and some state health officials is asking a judge handling her case not to throw out the lawsuit which Christie reportedly tried to block from advancing. She claims the politician's quarantine decision was made in bad faith.
The lawsuit was filed by the nurse identified as Kaci Hickox, who was mad after she was quarantined at a hospital due to having contact with Ebola patients in West Africa. The attorney for Hickox said the constitutional rights against unlawful seizure, unnecessary restraints, and due process were violated during her quarantine, Portland Press Herald shared. This comes after the government attempted last January to have the federal civil rights lawsuit dismissed.
State lawyers, however, argued that the health workers who handled Hickox acted with public safety in mind, thus the order for her to be quarantined, ABC News reported.
In the latest filing, Hickox added that the law permits limited immunity to officials who order legal quarantine but it requires one's good faith. She argued that the quarantine was made without any medical or epidemiological justification making it done in "bad faith." According to NJ.com, the latest brief also said the detention is ceased to be constitutional "when Defendants received the first set of blood test results indicating that Hickox was negative for Ebola."
The attorneys aargued that Hickox could have been on "direct active monitoring," meaning officials could take her temperature daily rather than having her quarantined immediately.
Other people sued by the plaintiff are former Department of Health Commissioner Mary E. O'Dowd and other department officials.
Hickox worked with Doctors Without Borders in Sierra Leone during the 2014 Ebola outbreak which had record-high number of deaths. She was stopped when she arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport and was questioned before being quarantined. She was held for 80 hours in a tent at University Hospital. She tested negative for Ebola and was allowed to return home to Maine but she has since moved to Oregon.
