Nevada Supreme Court Rejects NFL Petition in Jon Gruden Case
The Nevada Supreme Court has unanimously denied the NFL’s petition for a rehearing on former Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s lawsuit. The decision, made on Thursday, upholds the August ruling that prevents Gruden from being forced into league arbitration in his legal dispute. The seven judges signed the order rejecting the league’s request for reconsideration. The only legal option left to the NFL is to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. Sources close to the situation suggest that this is a likely possibility. In August, the Nevada court, with a 5-2 vote, did not rule on whether the NFL leaked Gruden’s emails. However, the majority of the judges determined that the league’s decision to force Gruden to submit his complaint to arbitration, overseen by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, was “unacceptable”. The court ruled that, as a former employee, Gruden should not be subject to the NFL constitution’s provision requiring arbitration for such claims.Gruden’s lawsuit alleges that Goodell and the league pressured the Raiders to fire him by leaking emails with racist, sexist, and anti-gay comments sent by Gruden when he was a television analyst. Gruden resigned from the Raiders in November 2021. He was their coach when the team moved to Las Vegas from Oakland in 2020. Gruden is seeking financial compensation, arguing that the selective disclosure of emails and their publication by media outlets ruined his career and sponsorship deals. Gruden’s lawyer, Adam Hosmer-Henner, expressed his satisfaction with the decision. Gruden was not available for comment. In August, after the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision, Gruden claimed that the leaked emails, which contained racist and anti-gay comments about Goodell and other league figures, disrupted the Raiders’ 2021 season, forcing owner Mark Davis to request the coach’s resignation when the team had a 3-1 record. “I hope the truth comes to light and I want to make sure what happened to me doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Gruden said. “What happened wasn’t right, and I’m glad the court didn’t allow the NFL to cover it up.”“By its own unambiguous language, the NFL Constitution no longer applies to Gruden,” the judges wrote. “If the NFL Constitution were to bind former employees, the commissioner could basically choose which disputes to arbitrate.”
Nevada Supreme Court
