A nurse who was quarantined against her will inside a plastic tent in New Jersey in the US after treating Ebola patients in West Africa has filed a civil rights lawsuit against Governor Chris Christie, her lawyer said.
Kaci Hickox is claiming in her lawsuit that Mr Christie, now a Republican presidential candidate, unconstitutionally and unreasonably detained, isolated and quarantined her in October last year without a valid legal or medical reason.
"This case is about liberty and freedom", said Norman Siegel, Ms Hickox's attorney.
"It's also about accountability, holding even governors accountable for their violations of citizens' constitutional rights," he added.
Ms Hickox, who became known in the media as the 'Ebola nurse', is seeking compensatory and punitive damages of at least $250,000, Mr Siegel said.
After sharply criticising Mr Christie over her forced isolation for nearly 80 hours, Ms Hickox was driven to her boyfriend's home in Fort Kent, Maine, where Governor Paul LePage ordered her quarantined, even though she had tested negative for the virus.
She publicly defied the order, drawing national attention to the battle between states seeking to impose strict restrictions on healthcare workers returning after treating Ebola patients and the civil liberties of those individuals.
A handful of states imposed mandatory quarantines on health workers returning from three Ebola-affected West African countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Late last year, Maine settled a lawsuit brought by Ms Hickox over the quarantine.
Mr Christie has defended his decision to impose a mandatory quarantine, saying that counting on a voluntary system may not work and that protecting health and safety is the government's job.
Ms Hickox, who has since married her boyfriend and moved to Oregon, filed the lawsuit partly to draw attention to national health policy issues surrounding Ebola that she says make no sense, her lawyer said.
