NFL seeks dismissal of Jon Gruden's lawsuit after Nevada Supreme Court sends it back to state court

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The Nevada Supreme Court returned Jon Gruden’s case to the state’s District Court on Thursday, and the NFL filed two motions seeking the prompt dismissal of the claims.

Gruden resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in October 2021 after the publication of emails he sent years earlier that included racist, misogynistic and homophobic language. A month later, he sued the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell, alleging a “malicious and orchestrated campaign” to destroy his career by leaking the emails.

In the motion filed Thursday and obtained by The Associated Press, NFL attorneys used aggressive language, saying: “The Complaint — Jon Gruden’s attempt to wrongly blame the NFL and its Commissioner for the consequences of the racist, misogynistic, and homophobic emails Gruden authored and widely distributed — hinges solely on unsupported allegations that fail as a matter of law or fall far short of stating a claim, and should have been promptly dismissed when the NFL Parties first so moved.”

Previously, the Nevada Supreme Court had denied the league’s earlier appeal of its ruling on Aug. 11 that Gruden can proceed with his lawsuit and not go through the league for arbitration.

The league’s attorneys said in the motion: “Gruden does not and cannot dispute that he wrote the emails that led to his resignation. He does not and cannot dispute that he freely sent those emails to multiple parties. He does not and cannot claim that the emails were misleadingly edited or altered in any way, let alone by the NFL Parties, or that the views espoused in them were not in fact expressed by him. Instead, Gruden has concocted a fictional story that attempts to paint himself as the victim of his own conduct.”

The motion to dismiss cites Nevada’s anti-SLAPP statute, which protects against lawsuits intended to silence those exercising their First Amendment rights.

“Gruden’s false claims are all premised on quintessential First Amendment activity: the NFL Parties’ alleged communication of unaltered emails authored by Gruden, a public figure, to the national media. And because those claims have no basis in law or fact, the complaint cannot survive under the anti-SLAPP statute,” NFL attorneys said.

In 2022, the NFL appealed to Nevada’s high court after a judge in Las Vegas rejected league bids to dismiss Gruden’s claim outright or to order out-of-court talks through an arbitration process that could be overseen by Goodell.

The high court, in a 5-2 ruling, said that “the arbitration clause in the NFL Constitution is unconscionable and does not apply to Gruden as a former employee.”

Gruden was an on-air analyst for ESPN from 2011-18 when the emails were sent.

He was the Raiders’ coach when the team moved in 2020 to Las Vegas from Oakland, California. He’s seeking monetary damages, saying that selective disclosure of the emails and their publication by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times ruined his career and endorsement contracts.

Gruden coached the Raiders in Oakland from 1998 to 2001, then led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for seven years, winning a Super Bowl title in 2003. After his stint at ESPN, he was hired by the Raiders in 2018.

He consulted for the New Orleans Saints in 2023. He is now a part owner and consultant for the Nashville Kats of the Arena Football One league.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl