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The lawsuit filed by former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden against commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL for negligence, intentional interference with contractual relations and other claims hit the Nevada Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The NFL has twice previously attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed or moved into the league’s arbitration system. Both times, the NFL was rebuffed.
On Wednesday, once again the NFL argued that Jon Gruden’s lawsuit lacks merit and that the results of the case should be determined using the league’s arbitration process.
Gruden, who filed the lawsuit in November 2021, has accused the NFL and Roger Goodell of allegedly “directly leaking” offensive emails he sent during his time working as a broadcaster for ESPN to harm his reputation and force him out as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.
NFL attorney Kannon Shanmugam claimed that when Gruden signed his contract with the Raiders he agreed to settling disputes using arbitration.
“Settled law requires that his claims be sent to arbitration, and the district court’s order should therefore be reversed,” Shanmugam said.
“Former Raiders coach Jon Gruden brings unsubstantiated claims against the NFL and its commissioner, claiming that they are somehow responsible for his resignation after the publication of … emails that he wrote and broadly circulated, emails that are too vile to read out in open court,” Shanmugam added.
“When Gruden entered into his contract with the Raiders, the richest coaching contract in NFL history, he agreed to two broad arbitration provisions that cover all disputes arising out of his employment agreement or involving conduct detrimental to the league.”
On the other hand, Gruden’s attorney Adam Hosmer-Henner told the Nevada Supreme Court that the NFL constitution does not indefinitely apply to former employees.
He also reiterated a previous court’s ruling that Gruden’s contract with the NFL is “illusory because it can be modified at the sole discretion of the commissioner and the NFL.”
According to Hosmer-Henner, the NFL is trying to get the case moved to arbitration “on the basis there was a buried paragraph in a 450-page document that [Gruden] never saw, couldn’t negotiate and had no opportunity to modify while the NFL reserved the unilateral ability to change that NFL constitution.”
Interestingly, according to ESPN, during the hearing Chief Justice Elissa F. Cadish said to the NFL’s attorney, “What about due process? To have a dispute with somebody who is the one deciding the dispute … seems like there might be a problem.”
Another argument used by Hosmer-Henner was the fact that that NFL arbitration process, which is controlled by the league, does not allow for any discovery to be made public.
The Nevada Supreme Court did not set a date for when they will make their ruling, but it is expected to take several weeks.