States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld Judge Sotomayor's injunction. Aspects of Truesdale and Gould's relationship seem highly contentious. But Michael J. Goldberg, Vice Dean at the Widener University School of Law, says that, while they differed on policy, their relationship was on the whole good and Truesdale's later account of his time on the NLRB with Gould is one of the more balanced ones. NLRB chairmanship, 1998–2001 Truesdale retired after his third term on the NRLB ended in 1996, although he continued to act part-time as a labor arbitrator. William Gould's term as NLRB chair ended on August 27, 1998. Two days later, the Clinton White House asked Truesdale to return to the NLRB as chair. "I was very conflicted about it," Truesdale later said. "But I worked for the NLRB for almost 50 years. How can you say no?" The administration's rationale for picking Truesdale was his acceptability to employers, conservative groups, and Republicans in Congress as well as a desire to avoid the contentious relationship Gould had with these groups during his tenure as chair. Administration officials also hoped Truesdale would smooth relationships among NLRB members themselves, who often had an unhappy relationship with Gould. Truesdale was given a recess appointment to the NLRB on December 4, 1998, and named chair by President Clinton. His recess appointment was due to expire in August 1999 when the Senate recessed, but he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on November 19, 1999. Truesdale said his only goal as chair would be to reduce the amount of time the board took to issue a decision. Truesdale's term of office was due to expire on August 27, 2003, but he said that he would step down as chair once a new president was inaugurated in 2001. During his tenure as chair, The Washington Post reported, Truesdale helped eliminate a severe backlog of cases. When Truesdale's term began, the board had about 700 cases pending. James A. Gross, a professor of labor studies at Cornell University, said in 2011 that eliminating the case backlog and shortening the time between a case's initial filing and its resolution was Truesdale's major accomplishment as chair. True to his position taken during the baseball strike controversy, Truesdale also largely kept the NLRB out of the news media. Ex-chairman Gould alleged that the Truesdale Board failed to issue decisions on many of the policy issues