Jon Gruden continues to pile up the Ws against the NFL.
The Nevada Supreme Court decided on Thursday to unanimously reject the NFL’s petition to rehear its previous decision granting discovery to Gruden in his lawsuit against the league for allegedly leaking his emails, Don Van Natta Jr. of ESPN reported on Thursday. Now the last legal resort remaining for the NFL is an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, which is seen as likely, Van Natta adds.
Back in August, Nevada’s high court ruled in a 5-2 vote that the Gruden lawsuit had to be litigated in court and that Gruden could not be compelled into league arbitration instead (full details here). Now on Thursday, the Nevada Supreme Court has this time decided by a 7-0 vote to deny the NFL’s petition for a rehearing of the decision.
Public litigation could potentially be damaging for the NFL due to the nature of the discovery process. Discovery is a pretrial phase in which the parties to a lawsuit may obtain evidence from one another. In this instance, discovery could lead to both Gruden and the public at large receiving access to potentially damaging materials related to the NFL’s investigation into the Washington Commanders in 2019 (which initially uncovered the Gruden emails).
Now 62 years old, Gruden resigned as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in 2021 after old emails in which he used highly offensive language went public. Those emails came from the period of 2011-18 and were sent to then-Washington general manager Bruce Allen. The NFL uncovered the emails as a part of their investigation into the Commanders over an allegedly toxic workplace environment.
Gruden then proceeded to sue the NFL, claiming that they intentionally leaked the emails in order to force him out of his job. The league has been attempting to keep the matter confined to arbitration for years now, but they have gotten rebuffed at every single turn (from the district court level all the way up to the state Supreme Court). Now the NFL will apparently try again with a last-ditch appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
These days, Gruden serves as a media personality for Barstool Sports and has recently even been eyeing the potential of coaching in college football. But with the NFL presumably looking to avoid discovery at all costs, it seems likelier now in the midst of all these legal defeats for them that they will be driven to settle the lawsuit with Gruden (possibly paving the way for him to return to coaching in the NFL).
