Bankrupt Steward Health Care, once the largest privately owned, for-profit health system with 31 hospitals, has been trying to sell all of them. Now Steward is suing its landlord, REIT Medical Properties Trust (MPT), for allegedly interfering with trying to dump its hospitals to new operators.

As the lawsuit reveals, while Steward owns all the licenses to operate the hospitals, 30 of the 31 hospitals were subject to master leases with Medical Properties and that the companies have "competing interests as it relates to the value" of the properties.

Steward has been planning to auction off all 31 of its hospitals. It's shaken up the healthcare industry and sent Massachusetts trying to prevent REITs like Medical Properties Trust from performing future sale-leasebacks with hospitals. "It is a situation that should never have happened, and we will be working together to ensure that there are steps taken to make sure that this does not happen again," said Governor Maura Healey. A bill out of the Massachusetts House of Representatives has a provision that would lock REITs out of future hospital ownership.