Jon Gruden loses bid to have NFL lawsuit reopened

LAS VEGAS — Jon Gruden lost his fight with the Nevada Supreme Court to reconsider whether the interference with contract and conspiracy lawsuit he filed against the NFL after resigning as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders should be heard in court or in private arbitration.

Gruden’s attorneys, the league and an NFL spokesman did not respond to messages after the notice was posted on the court’s website Monday. It was not immediately clear whether Gruden could seek a hearing before all seven Supreme Court justices.

Gruden’s attorneys filed a motion for rehearing after a three-judge panel split in a May 14 decision that the league could take the civil case out of state court and send it to arbitration, which could be overseen by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Gruden’s lawsuit, filed in November 2021, alleges that the league forced him to resign from the Raiders by revealing racist, sexist and homophobic emails he sent years earlier while he was at ESPN. Goodell is a named defendant in the case.

Two judges found that Gruden understood the NFL constitution to allow arbitration to resolve disputes, and said it was unclear whether Goodell or an appointed outside arbitrator would hear Gruden’s case.

One judge wrote that allowing Goodell to arbitrate a dispute in which he is a named party would be “scandalous.”

Gruden was the Raiders’ head coach when the team moved to Las Vegas from Oakland, California, in 2020. He left the team in November 2021 with more than six seasons remaining on his record-breaking 10-year, $100 million contract.

The league appealed to a state higher court after a Las Vegas judge ruled in May 2022 that Gruden’s claim that the league intentionally released only his records could be evidence of a “specific intent” or action intended to achieve a specific result.

Gruden was working at ESPN when the emails were sent from 2011 to 2018 to former Washington Commanders CEO Bruce Allen. They were found among about 650,000 emails obtained by the league during an investigation into the Washington workplace culture.

Gruden is seeking monetary damages, alleging that the selective disclosure of the emails and their publication by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times destroyed his career and ruined endorsement deals.

Gruden previously coached in the NFL from 1990 to 2008, including with Oakland and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, whom he led to a Super Bowl title in 2003. He worked as a television analyst for ESPN for several years before being rehired by the Raiders in 2018.