‘I haven’t seen anything’: Here are the Utah businesses suing Steward Health Care for unpaid bills

That’s the question Tim Hunt says he’s been waiting for: Why would he spend almost three years working for a client who didn’t pay him?

Hunt has several answers. The work was necessary, he said – hospitals need pest control to get rid of lice or bedbugs that might come in with patients. And his company, Hunt’s Pest Control, is good at it.

Hunt said he even believed his client, Steward Health Care, when they said the money was coming.

“There was a lot of promise along the way,” Hunt said.

Hunt is one of a dozen vendors, mostly in Utah, who last year sued Steward Health Care — which left Utah last year and sold five of its hospitals here — for outstanding debts.

The latest request comes from the Utah Attorney General’s office on behalf of the state Department of Health and Human Services — and Utah taxpayers — the complaint says.

Each vendor claims to have provided personnel, equipment or other services to one or more of the five Utah Steward-owned hospitals from 2017 to 2023, and have not been paid for it.

“I haven’t seen a cent from Steward,” said Hunt.

The 11 lawsuits filed in 2023 seek a combined $3.4 million in damages. Three dismissals — one ended with an indeterminate sentence after the defendants failed to respond, according to court documents — bringing Steward’s unpaid vendor debt to $2.8 million.

Those costs do not include three other lawsuits brought by former investors in Steward Hospitals, who say the company changed them before it sold its Utah hospitals and left the state.

Steward Health Care is dominating the news cycle in Massachusetts recently, where state officials and company executives are working to keep nine hospitals open despite financial problems. Massachusetts leaders have accused Steward of putting profit over patient care; The Public Health Commission called Steward’s practices “irresponsible,” according to a report from WBUR.

The lawsuits say Steward also left a mess in Utah. And its victims are small businesses like Hunt’s, for which $25,000 — over two years’ work — is “a lot of money.”

These are businesses trying to recover money they say Steward Health Care still owes them.

Hunt Pest Control

Hunt is the second of three generations to own Hunt Pest Control in Sandy. His father started the business in 1973, he said his son took over last year. His older brother runs the residential side of the business in Lehi.

Hunt’s Pest Control worked with Salt Lake Regional Medical Center (now Holy Cross Hospital – Salt Lake and owned by Centura Health) for years before Steward bought the hospital in 2017, he said.

They were always paid on time, Hunt said. Shortly after Steward took over, that remained true.

According to court documents, Steward stopped paying its invoices in 2019.

Hunt kept doing the work, because Steward kept promising the money would come, Hunt said. The work included regular maintenance, but also emergency calls, sometimes in the middle of the night, to get rid of bedbugs or lice. When those calls came in, Hunt said, his team always answered “within two hours.”

“It’s a thankless deal,” Hunt said. “Maybe the adults who write the checks didn’t know what we were doing, but they kept making promises, and nothing ever came. It’s very confusing.”

Hunt said the hospital is still a customer, currently under new ownership and management. Pay hasn’t been a problem since Steward left.

Steward did not respond to Hunt’s legal claims. A judge issued a default judgment last week against Steward for $24,610, which accounts for unpaid invoices and late fees, according to court documents.

At least one case has ended in a mistrial, and attorneys are now seeking to recover the money by going directly to the bank where they believe Steward has an account.

“I’ll feel better when I get the money,” Hunt said.

Utah Public Health Lab

The Utah Public Health Laboratory, a state agency under the Department of Health and Human Services, says taxpayers are being forced to cover the cost of the newborn tests that Steward did not pay for.

Deputy Attorney General Amy Jackson Leach filed the lawsuit in early February on behalf of the state lab. According to the complaint, Steward “owes Utah taxpayers” nearly $316,000.

Utah state law requires all newborns to be screened for certain health conditions. Hospitals offer tests; The state lab offers test kits and fees for each.

Steward paid for its tests regularly until 2020, the complaint says, and then defaulted on its bills after “repeated requests” from the lab. In 2023, the lawsuit says, Steward stopped paying completely. The lab was still legally obligated to provide the test kits, the complaint said, because newborns had to be tested — and that cost fell on taxpayers.

A spokesman for the Attorney General’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Deseret News Release

The Deseret News, Utah’s oldest news publisher, sued Steward Health last November, saying Steward owed them $76,800 in fees for eight months of advertising on the website and news app.

The complaint alleges that Steward agreed to “participate” in the Deseret News’ high school sports page, giving the hospital team exclusive advertising rights in that section online and in the Deseret News app. Deseret offered its half of the deal, the lawsuit alleges, but Steward has not paid eight months of invoices, despite repeated assurances that payment “will be forthcoming.”

Steward did not respond to Deseret’s complaint; Attorneys for the Deseret News — which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — filed a motion for summary judgment in January.

Thomas Cuisine Management

A judge ordered Steward Health to pay $288,586 in damages to Thomas Cuisine Management, the Idaho company that managed all food and dining services at all five Utah hospitals.

Thomas Cuisine said it stopped being paid for its work in January 2023. It filed a lawsuit last September, seeking six months of unpaid invoices.

Steward did not respond to the charges, and the jury handed down the final verdict in November. Thomas Cuisine filed for bankruptcy protection in January to raise money from Bank of America, which Thomas’ attorneys believe is Steward Health Care’s bank.

Aeroscape Park City LLC

A Utah landscaping company says its relationship with Steward soured shortly after it started in 2020.

Aeroscape removed snow and ice from all five Utah hospitals, according to a complaint filed in August. But it terminated the original agreement in 2022 after “Steward failed to pay on time.”

When Steward couldn’t find anyone else to provide snow removal services, it “asked” Aeroscape to come back, the complaint says. Aeroscape agreed, according to the complaint, but with caveats: The new contract required Steward to pay all invoices within 45 days or incur 22% late payment interest; and Steward are also said to have agreed to pay Aeroscape’s legal fees if they need to settle their debts in court.

Steward has not responded to the allegations against it in this case. The company was issued in October, according to court records; nothing has happened since then. Aeroscape wants at least $162,980 in costs.

3D Medical Staffing LLC

3D Medical Staffing has filed the largest lawsuit to date against Steward Health, seeking more than $1.7 million. The nursing agency said it provided temporary services to all five Utah hospitals between 2018 and 2023, but Steward stopped paying its invoices in 2021.

This is also one of the few cases where Steward’s attorneys have responded to the complaint. In its defense, Steward’s attorneys admitted that Steward “failed to pay all invoices,” but denied all other allegations in the lawsuit, including that Steward breached its contract with 3D Medical Staffing.

Steward’s attorney is challenging the amount owed to 3D Medical Staffing, saying one of the invoices he received is different from what 3D Medical Staffing presented as evidence. They also said Steward received only 167 of the 205 invoices and “has no record of receiving the other 38.”

Steward’s attorney filed a motion for summary judgment late last week. A hearing is scheduled for March 19 before Judge Barry Lawrence.

Steward did not respond to The Tribune’s request for comment.

Sterile Processing Services of America

Sterile Processing Services of America’s Utah office says Steward owes $255,438 in unpaid invoices. A California company has supplied four Utah hospitals with surgical towels and gowns, according to a copy of the contract included in court documents. The company also cleaned, packaged and prevented the products from being reused.

Steward “acknowledges that some invoices remain unpaid,” according to a response filed by Steward’s attorney, but denies the other allegations and argues that its contracts are “not valid. “

The case is in the discovery phase. An attorney for Steward did not respond to a request for comment.

The cases have been dismissed

The Vericel Corporation case was dismissed in August after a default judgment was entered against Steward for $142,000.

Two other cases filed in 2023 were dismissed for reasons not explained in court documents.

Shannon Sollitt is Report for America member of the team covering corporate responsibility and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation along with our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; Please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking Here.

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