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Don Van Natta Jr.
Jon Gruden said Tuesday he is eager to discover the truth in a Nevada courtroom about whether commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL leaked emails to the media before Gruden was forced to resign as Las Vegas Raiders coach in 2021.
“I’m looking forward to having the truth come out and I want to make sure what happened to me doesn’t happen to anyone else,” he said in a statement provided to ESPN.
Gruden said he blames the NFL for leaking the emails, which led the league to pressure the Raiders to force him out when the team was 3-1.
“The league’s actions disrupted the whole season,” Gruden said. “We were leading the division at the time, and they completely blindsided me and the team.”
He added, “What happened wasn’t right and I’m glad the court didn’t let the NFL cover it up.”
Gruden’s comments came a day after the Nevada Supreme Court sided with him in his lawsuit alleging the NFL leaked damaging emails to the media before he was forced to resign in October 2021.
In a 5-2 ruling, the justices did not determine whether the league had leaked Gruden’s racist, sexist and anti-gay emails to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times at the time. But they found the league’s decision to force Gruden’s complaint into closed-door arbitration proceedings overseen by Goodell — the target of Gruden’s civil lawsuit — was “unconscionable.”
An NFL spokesperson said Tuesday the league would petition the Nevada Supreme Court for a rehearing. If that fails, the most likely next venue will be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Neither Gruden nor his lawyer, Adam Hosmer-Henner, would say whether they were inclined to settle the case with the NFL.
Gruden declined to address his coaching future Tuesday. He said last week he was eager to return to coaching and added: “I’d die to coach in the SEC.”
Hosmer-Henner said he was gratified that the Nevada Supreme Court blocked Goodell from overseeing an arbitration proceeding when he is a defendant in a lawsuit.
“The NFL’s legal position is absurd and will continue to be rejected by every court,” Hosmer-Henner told ESPN. “Obviously, the NFL should not be allowed to be the judge of claims against the NFL or force people to comply with contracts that the NFL can unilaterally change any time it wants without notice.”
The five justices of the Nevada Supreme Court ruled Monday that as a former employee, Gruden should not have been bound by an NFL constitution provision mandating arbitration for such complaints. Gruden’s leaked emails were sent in 2011 while he was working for ESPN as a “Monday Night Football” analyst.
“By its own unambiguous language, the NFL Constitution no longer applies to Gruden,” the five justices wrote. “If the NFL Constitution were to bind former employees, the Commissioner could essentially pick and choose which disputes to arbitrate.”
On Monday, Hosmer-Henner lauded the Nevada Supreme Court decision, saying it was a victory not just for Gruden but for all employees facing “an employer’s unfair arbitration process.”
“This victory further vindicates Coach Gruden’s reputation, and it clears the way to swiftly bringing him full justice and holding the NFL accountable,” Hosmer-Henner said.
Gruden’s lawsuit alleges that Goodell and the league pressured Raiders owner Mark Davis to fire the coach by leaking emails containing offensive comments that Gruden sent about the commissioner and others in the NFL.
Gruden won at the district court level. The NFL appealed to Nevada’s 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 settlement talks that could be overseen by Goodell.
A year ago, a three-judge panel of the Nevada Supreme Court decided the league could move Gruden’s civil case into arbitration that might be overseen by Goodell. Two justices said Gruden knew when he signed a 10-year contract with the Raiders in 2018 that the NFL used arbitration to resolve disputes. The dissenting justice wrote that it would be “outrageous” for Goodell to arbitrate a dispute in which he is named as a defendant.
Gruden’s lawyers were granted an en banc hearing of all seven Nevada Supreme Court justices, who heard oral arguments last year. All four justices who heard the case for the first time sided with Gruden against the NFL.