ACLU To File Suit To Release Quarantined Nurse

October 26th, 2014

As I anticipated earlier, the litigation will soon commence. The ACLU is filing a suit on behalf of a nurse, being quarantined by New Jersey, though she is showing no symptoms of ebola.

Lawyers for a nurse quarantined in a New Jersey hospital say they’ll sue to have her released and file a constitutional challenge to state restrictions for health care workers returning to New York and New Jersey after treating Ebola patients in West Africa. Civil liberties attorney Norman Siegel said Kaci Hickox, who was quarantined after arriving Friday at the Newark airport, shows no symptoms and should be released immediately. He and attorney Steven Hyman said the state attorney general’s office had cooperated in getting them access to Hickox.

The Executive Director of the NYCLU is making a frontal assault to Christie’s authority:

“The current order is sweeping in individuals who are asymptomatic and who may never develop symptoms,” Ms. Lieberman said. “I think there is a serious question as to whether the governor has the authority to impose the broad quarantine that he has imposed,” she added.

 

The judge in this case will have a very interesting decision to make. I have this sinking feeling the DOJ may intervene, and this case may go high up.