Late last month, Prime Healthcare Services filed an unusual complaint with a California federal court. The health care conglomerate, California’s most profitable and the owner of seventeen hospitals in the state, brought suit against the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, accusing it of racketeering violations under the RICO Act.

To date, the parties have traded multiple lawsuits, slugged out their differences in front of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and made repeated attempts to legislate each other out of existence. And now Prime has accused the SEIU, which represents nursing staff, caregivers, and environmental services workers, of attempting to unionize Prime hospitals in an effort to extort money from the conglomerate.

The nature of Prime’s squabbles with labor are unique among health care organizations, just as Prime itself is sui generis, both for its approach to the business of healthcare and the singularly noxious reputation that approach has engendered. A hospital geared toward the production of profit, Prime has taken the ethos of capitalism to its logical conclusion.