In the autumn of 1989, Linda Haller turned in a class paper to her journalism instructor at Essex Community College. She brought a certain expertise to the topic: the nursing shortage at a local hospital where she worked.
Mrs. Haller earned an A in the course and was named the school's outstanding English student the next year. She graduated from Essex and earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Baltimore -- also with top honors.
"Everything was wonderful," she said at her home in Havre de Grace, where she lives with her husband, Kevin, and their four children.
"It was the happiest time of my life. We had just bought this new house, I had won some writing contests, I was looking to land a better job in the hospital's public relations office."
But in December 1992 -- more than three years after she turned in the assignment -- Linda Haller's paper on the nursing shortage Franklin Square Hospital Center -- by this time outdated and inaccurate -- appeared in the Essex Community College student newspaper, the Montage.
Officials at Franklin Square were unhappy. Mrs. Haller was crushed. The outcome was a nightmarish series of events that, Mrs. Haller and her doctors contend, sent her into a major depression during which she has contemplated suicide.
The depression forced her to take off work and eventually resulted in her losing her clerical job. She has been consulting an attorney to seek legal redress.
An Essex spokeswoman called the timing of the publication "unfortunate" but insisted that the college did no wrong.
Journalism professors and intellectual property lawyers elsewhere called it outrageous. The U.S. Department of Education has also indicated an interest in Mrs. Haller's case, based on the possibility the college violated her privacy by publishing the paper.
"I feel like a different person," said Mrs. Haller, 39. "Since that article was published, I lost my job and I have been unable to write a sentence. I am afraid to fail. I miss it more than anyone can imagine. Writing was my sanctuary, and losing that love has broken my heart."
University journalism and intellectual property legal specialists said that publishing a 3-year-old paper as a newspaper article amounts to journalistic malpractice.
Officials at Franklin Square said the original paper was solid -- most hospitals were experiencing a shortage of nurses at the time. They said the problem was solved with massive recruiting before the article was published.
Franklin Square officials don't bear Mrs. Haller any ill will, and Mrs. Haller said the hospital -- once it learned what had happened -- was supportive.
"Her point of view as a student writing for a journalism class was done a lot differently than a feature for publication in the student newspaper," said Holly Dietor, Franklin Square's director of public relations. "Linda worked as hard as she could to have Essex Community College run a correction and have the problem resolved."
Mrs. Haller said no correction was ever run, and she never received an apology from the college.
Debbie Rosen McKerrow, an Essex spokeswoman, doesn't dispute that Mrs. Haller's paper was published more than three years after it was written -- and that she was never informed that it would be used so long after the fact.
"We feel very badly that this has taken an apparent toll on her," Mrs. McKerrow said. "But she wrote the words, and she understood they would be published. The timing was unfortunate."
She said the journalism instructor and Montage adviser, Gwyneth Howard, was not responsible for the story appearing. Mrs. McKerrow said Jennifer Meade, the student editor, pulled the paper from the instructor's files because "she had a hole to fill" in the newspaper.
Ms. Meade, now a senior at the University of Maryland College Park, tells a different story.
She said on Friday that she retrieved Mrs. Haller's paper from an "articles hold file. My instructor said I could pull any article from the file and put it into the paper. I believe she gave the final OK for the edition that contained the article.
"I was not responsible for anything. . . . I did my job as outlined by Mrs. Howard," Ms. Meade said.
She said that she thought that writing a story about the nursing shortage at Franklin Square was "in poor taste."
"The Essex nursing program uses Franklin Square as a clinical training site, and I wouldn't have written the article myself, but that's why I'm not going into journalism when I graduate," Ms. Meade said.
Mrs. McKerrow said the instructor had kept the paper on file in her office at the college "because it was an example of good writing." She said Mrs. Howard would not be available for an interview.
In a letter to Mrs. Haller in January 1993, James E. Duffy, dean of student life, supported Ms. Meade's account of where the paper was stored. He wrote, "Your article was filed in an 'article reserve,' which is used as a resource file should additional articles be needed for future editions."
He also wrote, "It is unfortunate that in this instance, your article created problems for you."
Elliott King, an assistant professor of journalism at Loyola College and an author and magazine editor, called printing a 3-year-old student paper as an article "terrible journalism."
"Things change in three years, three days," he said. "The story was not fresh, it reported on something that was wrong. It seems like a real breakdown in any reasonable standards on all levels at the college."
In July 1994, Franklin Square Hospital notified Mrs. Haller that she had reached the six-month maximum for medical leave of absence. Since she was unable to return to work after that six-month period, she was discharged.
She will receive 60 percent of her salary for two years while she is being treated for her depression. Dr. Dennis J. Kutzer said Mrs. Haller's symptoms have included insomnia, distractibility, loss of interest in pleasurable activities and strong thoughts of suicide.