The District of Columbia-based U.S. Court of Appeals has issued a rare, scathing order to the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain, Tennessee-based Community Health Systems, requiring it to repay all of a union’s costs incurred in efforts to bargain a contract for registered nurses at a San Diego hospital.
Writing for the court May 8, Senior Judge Harry Edwards, the court’s former Chief Judge, rejected CHS’ Fallbrook Hospital’s appeal of an April, 2014, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling that Fallbrook acted in an “obstinate and pugnacious†manner in unlawfully refusing to bargain with nurses represented by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United.
