LAS VEGAS – Former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden will get a full Nevada Supreme Court review of a lawsuit he filed against the NFL over emails leaked to the media before he resigned from the team in 2021.
The state’s highest court isn’t scheduling oral arguments but said Thursday that all seven justices will reconsider findings after a panel split 2-1 in a May 14 decision to dismiss the case. The same three justices on July 1 rejected, by the same 2-1 margin, a request from Gruden’s attorneys to reconsider.
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The panel decided the league could move the civil case into arbitration that might be overseen by a defendant, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Two justices said Gruden knew when he signed a contract with the Raiders that the NFL used arbitration to resolve disputes. The dissenting justice said it would be “outrageous” for Goodell to arbitrate a dispute in which he is a named defendant.
Attorneys for Gruden, Goodell and the league didn’t immediately respond Friday to email messages. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy declined to comment.
Gruden’s lawsuit alleges that Goodell and the league pressured the Raiders to fire Gruden by leaking emails containing racist, sexist and homophobic comments that Gruden sent, when he was an on-air analyst at ESPN, about Goodell and others in the NFL. Gruden resigned from the Raiders in November 2021.
The NFL appealed to the state high court after a state judge in Las Vegas in May 2022 rejected league bids to dismiss Gruden’s claim outright or to order out-of-court talks that could be overseen by Goodell.
The judge pointed to Gruden’s allegation that the league intentionally leaked only his documents. She said a jury could decide that was evidence of “specific intent,” or an act designed to cause a particular result.
Gruden was Raiders head coach when the team moved in 2020 to Las Vegas from Oakland, California. He's seeking monetary damages, alleging that selective disclosure of the emails and their publication by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times ruined his career and endorsement contracts.
Gruden coached the Raiders in Oakland from 1998 to 2001, then led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for seven years, winning a Super Bowl title in 2003. He spent several years as a TV analyst for ESPN before being hired by the Raiders again in 2018.
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