[1] Barmore's husband George had been severely disabled after an accident and was unable to work, making the operation of the boarding house their sole source of income.
[1] In November 1919, through the use of contact tracing, Chicago Health Commissioner John Dill Robertson found that five cases of typhoid had originated at the boarding house that Barmore operated in the city.
[1] Barmore, at the time 65 years of age,[3] refused to cease operating her boarding house, arguing that it was her household's sole source of income.
On December 15, Jennie was taken away from the boarding house and brought to Cook County Hospital by an armed health official and three police officers.
[2] They announced that they planned to file a lawsuit with Barmore, and noted lawyer Clarence Darrow agreed to represent them.
The case was heard in the Superior Court of Cook County, with a judge ruling in November 1920 that Barmore was a public health threat and that her quarantine was needed.
[3] With Darrow still representing her,[4] in June 1921[3] Barmore petitioned the Supreme Court of Illinois for a writ of habeas corpus to declare that Robertson and Chicago Health Commission epidemiologist Herman Bundesen were unlawfully restraining her liberty by preventing her from leaving her home amid suspicions that she was a carrier of typhoid.