Investigation: Former Lebanon, Tennessee hospital owner has sued hundreds of patients during the pandemic

A knock came on the door of Hope Cantwell’s East Nashville apartment early this year. She still hadn’t been vaccinated and says she wasn’t really answering the door to strangers. So she didn’t. But then several more attempts came over the course of a week. Eventually she masked up and opened. A legal assistant handed her a summons to appear in court. "I couldn’t believe someone — someone? a corporation? a company? — was doing this during a pandemic," Cantwell says. It started with a hospital visit in May 2019. Cantwell was referred to the Tennova Healthcare-Lebanon facility owned at the time by Community Health Systems, a publicly traded company based in Franklin.