In Finley Hospital, the NLRB considered whether an employer violated the NLRA by:

Nurses at The Finley Hospital were covered by a one-year CBA in 2005, under which the hospital agreed to raise the pay of each nurse by 3% on his anniversary date for the duration of the agreement. Negotiations for a successor agreement were unsuccessful, and after the CBA expired the hospital notified its nurses that since wage increases must be agreed to by the union and the hospital, the hospital could not provide raises under the CBA to nurses whose anniversary dates fell after the expiration date.

Before negotiations for the 2005 CBA began, the hospital instituted department-level unit operations councils (UOCs) for staff to discuss day-to-day operations. Minutes of the UOCs were posted on bulletin boards or were made available to nurses in binders. In 2006, the union asked the hospital for information on:

The hospital refused to provide information about the UOCs and calloffs by nurses, claiming it was not relevant to the parties' successor CBA negotiations or to enforce the 2005 CBA. Eight months later, after learning from an NLRB attorney that the union sought the information on nurse absences because of a mumps outbreak in early 2006, the hospital provided the union with its 2006 OSHA log, stating the union's earlier request had not explained why it needed the information.

Finally, on June 22, 2005, the hospital discharged a unit nurse, Gina Gross, for disruptive behavior and misconduct based on complaints from Gross' coworkers and from family members of patients under Gross' care. On July 7, the union asked for information to help it prepare a potential grievance of Gross' termination, including the names and contact information on the complaining coworkers and patients' family members. The union filed its grievance five days later.

The hospital provided redacted versions of the coworkers' complaints on July 13 but refused to name the complainants for confidentiality reasons. The hospital noted that if the grievance went to a hearing, however, it would need to reveal the names so they could be questioned as witnesses. After the union filed an unfair labor practice charge (ULP), the hospital offered to provide the names of the coworkers who had complained about Gross' actions towards other patients, but not the names of either the coworkers who had complained about Gross' actions towards themselves or the family members.

The union filed ULP charges based on all of these issues. An NLRB administrative law judge (ALJ) found for the union on nearly all charges, but found the hospital had offered the union a reasonable accommodation of its need for the names and contact information of family members who had complained about Gross by:

The NLRB's General Counsel and the hospital filed exceptions with the four-member panel (Board) heading the NLRB's judicial functions.

On September 28, 2012, a three-member panel of the Board issued a decision in Finley Hospital, upholding the ALJ's decision in most respects but additionally finding the hospital failed to offer a reasonable accommodation of the union's need for the names and contact information of the family members who had complained about Gross.

On the first issue, the Board found the hospital violated the NLRA by failing to continue paying nurses a 3% raise after the 2005 CBA expired. Employers have a statutory duty to maintain the status quo pending CBA negotiations, and according to the Board, the language in the CBA limiting the pay raises to "the duration of this Agreement" was not a clear and unmistakable waiver by the union of the hospital's duty to maintain the status quo. Since the Board found the union did not waive its right to bargain over the discontinuance of the annual wage increase, the hospital violated the NLRA by:

Second, the Board found the hospital violated the NLRA by failing to provide requested information about the UOCs and the nurses' absences. The Board agreed with the ALJ that the information about the UOCs was presumptively relevant to continuing negotiations because the UOCs affected terms and conditions of employment for the bargaining unit nurses and rejected the hospital's defense that the union had alternative means of accessing the information, through the binders and bulletin boards. Similarly, the Board agreed with the ALJ's decision that the information on the nurses' absences was presumptively relevant insofar as it concerned bargaining unit nurses.

Finally, the Board found the hospital failed to reasonably accommodate the union's requests for information on Gross in violation of the NLRA. Contrary to the ALJ, the Board found the hospital did not offer a reasonable accommodation by offering not to call the complaining family members as witnesses at a hearing and providing the names of some of the complaining coworkers. Since the union was in the middle of representing a discharged employee seeking a resolution of her grievance, the Board stated it was the hospital's duty to promptly offer an accommodation after stating its confidentiality concerns. Because the hospital failed to do that in its initial letter providing some information on July 13, the hospital violated the NLRA. The Board also upheld the ALJ's conclusions that the hospital failed to offer an accommodation regarding the union's need to identify coworkers who complained about Gross' actions towards themselves.

Member Hayes dissented, noting:

In Finley Hospital, the Board broadened its analysis of the status quo to include pay raises that language in the underlying CBA clearly contemplated would last only as long as the CBA. The Board also found that where patient and coworker confidentiality rights conflict with a union's request for information, the employer must either comply or offer reasonable accommodation within a short period of time. In light of this decision, employers should be aware that: