BOSTON — The CEO of Dallas-based Steward Health Care Monday filed a lawsuit against a U.S. Senate committee that voted to hold him in contempt for failing to testify on the bankrupt hospital network’s financial problems despite his being subpoenaed.
The lawsuit filing came the day before Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre is set to step down as Steward’s CEO as part of an agreement reached earlier this month. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington D.C.
, names nearly all members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, including chair U.
S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont.
The lawsuit alleges the committee is violating de la Torre’s constitutional rights. “As alleged herein, Defendants are collectively undertaking a concerted effort to punish Dr. de la Torre for invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to be ‘compelled.
..to be a witness against himself,’ and to continue to command his sworn testimony by compulsion without regard to the validity of his invocation,” the lawsuit reads.
In the lawsuit, de la Torre is asking the court to rule that all actions related to the enforcement of the subpoena are invalid and unconstitutional. “Dr. de la Torre has invoked his inalienable rights under the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution, which no one — not the Congress, not the President, not the Judiciary — has the right to deprive him of while he faces the criminal accusations the Committee has hurled at him.
No one can.