Jon Gruden won a battle in his ongoing lawsuit against the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday, with the Nevada Supreme Court upholding a ruling that denied a motion to send Gruden\u2019s complaint into the league\u2019s arbitration process.<\/p>\n
With a 5-2 majority decision, the court not only confirmed the previous district court ruling but also reversed a May 2024 decision<\/a> by a Nevada Supreme Court panel that would allow arbitration. Now, unless the NFL appeals Monday\u2019s decision to the Supreme Court, Gruden\u2019s case can move forward in public instead of going to arbitration.<\/p>\n In a statement acquired by The Athletic, Gruden\u2019s attorney, Adam Hosmer-Henner, said:\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re very pleased with the Nevada Supreme Court\u2019s decision, not just for Coach Gruden but for all employees facing an employer\u2019s unfair arbitration process. This victory further vindicates Coach Gruden\u2019s reputation, and it clears the way to swiftly bringing him full justice and holding the NFL accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n An NFL spokesperson said the league declined to comment at this time.<\/p>\n In a statement by the majority Monday, the court said the NFL Constitution\u2019s arbitration clause \u201cdoes not apply to Gruden\u201d because he was a former employee at the time his lawsuit was filed, calling its use in this case \u201cunconscionable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBy its own unambiguous language, the NFL Constitution no longer applies to Gruden,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n The court also refused an argument that arbitration language in Gruden\u2019s contract with the Raiders would prevent him from suing the NFL. \u201cThe presence of an arbitration clause does not bind a party to arbitrate any claim, with any other party, at any time,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n Gruden sued the NFL and Goodell in November 2021<\/a> after he resigned as coach of the Raiders, a decision he made after racist, homophobic and sexist emails<\/a> emerged from an investigation into the NFL\u2019s franchise in Washington. In his suit, Gruden accused the NFL of leaking those emails \u201cthrough a malicious and orchestrated campaign,\u201d saying \u201cthe NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell sought to destroy the career and reputation of Jon Gruden, the former head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.\u201d<\/p>\n Gruden alleged in the complaint that he was \u201cforced to resign\u201d in the wake of those emails becoming public.<\/p>\n Gruden sent the emails in question while he worked as a \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d commentator at ESPN from 2011 to 2018; they were sent to Washington\u2019s president at the time, Bruce Allen. More than 650,000 Allen emails were reviewed as part of the league\u2019s investigation into sexual harassment and workplace culture in Washington.<\/p>\n The NFL\u2019s compulsory arbitration provision is found in two places: employee contracts and the NFL Constitution. In the employment contract, there is also a provision incorporating the constitution.<\/p>\n Gruden previously said in a signed declaration that he was \u201cnever provided a copy of the version of the NFL Constitution and Bylaws that was attached to Defendant\u2019s Motion To Compel Arbitration.\u201d<\/p>\n He also argued the arbitration provision in his employment contract was between him and the Raiders, not the NFL, and that the NFL arbitration process in the Constitution no longer applied to him as an ex-employee.<\/p>\n Either way, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that neither applies in this case.<\/p>\n \u201cWe conclude the arbitration clause in the NFL Constitution is unconscionable and does not apply to Gruden as a former employee,\u201d the decision read. \u201cNor, in the circumstances presented here, can the NFL Parties claim equitable estoppel to enforce the arbitration clause in Gruden\u2019s coaching contract with the Raiders. Because the NFL Parties cannot compel Gruden to arbitrate, we ORDER the judgment of the district court AFFIRMED.\u201d<\/p>\n (Photo: Dustin Bradford \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jon Gruden won a battle in his ongoing lawsuit against the NFL and commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,1736,514,82,1758],"class_list":["post-63515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-las-vegas-raiders","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-washington-commanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63515","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=63515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}