Hospital Chief Exec Investigated by Senate Sues to Quash Subpoena
WASHINGTON — The outgoing chief executive officer of a troubled health care system sued members of the U.S. Senate Monday after they subpoenaed him to testify about what appeared to be windfall profits for himself and business associates.
Ralph de la Torre and his companies earned about $250 million over four years while Steward Health Care endured complaints about short staffing, lack of medical equipment and inadequate patient care under his control, according to his Senate critics.
De la Torre refused to testify to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in July, which led its 20 members to subpoena him.
His lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeks to cancel the subpoena. It accuses the committee of violating his Fifth and First Amendment rights.
“No one can be compelled to testify when they exercise this right under these circumstances,” an attorney for de la Torre said in a statement. “Nor does the Constitution permit Congress to punish and intimidate him, or any other American, for exercising these rights.”
Steward Health Care is one of the largest for-profit health care systems in the United States. The Dallas-based corporation operates 31 hospitals and had about 33,000 U.S. employees at the beginning of 2024. It operates other hospitals in Colombia and the Middle East.
The company has been in bankruptcy since May 6 with about $9 billion in debt. De la Torre, who was a Steward founder in 2010, resigned on Tuesday.
The company propelled its rapid rate of expansion largely through debt-driven mergers and acquisitions. Much of the financing came from leasebacks and sales in which Steward would purchase hospitals and immediately resell them to real estate firm Medical Properties Trust or lease them.
Money from the sales and leases would be used to recover costs, pay investors and to fuel additional expansions.
Steward officials said the sales and leases freed them from infrastructure issues to focus on patient care. Critics of the business model said it contributed to the company’s financial problems and a tendency to skimp on fully funding its hospitals, along with the staff and equipment they needed.
The company has closed pediatric wards in Massachusetts and Louisiana, neonatal units in Florida and Texas, and eliminated maternity services at a Florida hospital.
The criticisms reached a peak last year after vendors repossessed some of Steward’s medical equipment at Saint Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Masachusetts, because of unpaid bills.
Staff members were unable to treat a new mother who suffered a liver bleed because they lacked the proper equipment. The woman was transferred to a different hospital but died shortly afterward.
A Massachusetts Department of Health investigation blamed Steward’s business model for its inability to pay vendors.
On Friday, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said the state formally seized Saint Elizabeth’s Medical Center to keep it open and transition it to a new owner. Two other Massachusetts hospitals owned by Steward closed this year after being unable to find qualified buyers.
Similar issues led the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to subpoena Steward’s chief executive.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said before his committee subpoenaed de la Torre on Sept. 19 that Congress “will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America.”
Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said Steward “looted hospitals across the country for profit, and got rich through their greedy schemes.”
He said de la Torre’s resignation does not resolve the Senate’s concerns over possible mismanagement at Steward.
“He has extracted hundreds of millions from emergency departments, operating rooms, and intensive care units to buy luxury property, expensive vacations, and yachts, all while patients suffered and died and workers and hospitals went unresourced,” Markey said.
If the history of Supreme Court rulings is an indication, de la Torre stands minimal chance of canceling, or “quashing,” the Senate’s subpoena.
The Supreme Court has generally held that congressional subpoenas are “political questions” unsuitable for judicial remedy.
The leading case is Eastland v. United States Servicemen’s Fund in which the Supreme Court said in 1975 that congressional subpoenas are authorized under the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution. It provides “an absolute bar to judicial interference” if Congress acts within its “legitimate legislative sphere,” the court’s ruling said.
De la Torre’s lawsuit is de la Torre v. Sanders, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 24-cv-02776.
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