pending an appeal of his decision<\/a> in December to deny their motion to dismiss the suit based on Nevada\u2019s anti-SLAPP law.<\/p>\nSLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, and the anti-SLAPP statute is intended to limit civil liability for people exercising free speech rights in connection with \u201can issue of public concern.\u201d Discovery is the process in which attorneys exchange information while preparing a case for trial.<\/p>\n
Hardy seemed skeptical of the NFL\u2019s request for a delay and said the anti-SLAPP motion was \u201cwithout merit,\u201d \u201cwas not filed in good faith\u201d and was a \u201ctactical misuse.\u201d He ordered the NFL to participate in discovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder your argument, couldn\u2019t anybody essentially, regardless of case, posture, procedure file an anti-SLAPP motion two years, three years into a case and then I automatically have to stay?\u201d the judge asked Marks. \u201cThat seems to be a little bit of a stretch.\u201d<\/p>\n
The anti-SLAPP motion was filed in 2025, when the case had already been pending for years.<\/p>\n
Marks said the defendants made good faith arguments for an extension of time. The anti-SLAPP statute is designed to avoid additional litigation costs and resolve issues quickly, so not staying discovery defeats the purpose of the statute, he said.<\/p>\n
The NFL argued in filings that the law pauses discovery when someone appeals the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss.<\/p>\n
Gruden\u2019s attorney Adam Hosmer-Henner suggested the NFL was trying to stall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NFL defendants have felt things are not going well for a while now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added that lawmakers wanted cases without merit dismissed at the outset of litigation and \u201cnot to have an anti-SLAPP motion filed four years too late.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Maximilien Fetaz declined to comment after court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe appreciate the Court\u2019s decision and its clear direction to move the case forward,\u201d Hosmer-Henner said in an email.<\/p>\n
After refusing to pause discovery, the judge and attorneys discussed scheduling. Hardy indicated that the discovery process would last 12 months and the trial would run for about four weeks.<\/p>\n
Previously, the case spent years before the Nevada Supreme Court, where attorneys tangled over the question of whether Gruden could be forced into arbitration.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court ruled in August that Gruden could not be compelled to undergo arbitration, sending the case back to the trial court.<\/p>\n
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge on Wednesday ordered the discovery process to proceed in former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-501400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}