LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada Supreme Court docket returned Jon Gruden’s case to the state’s District Court docket on Thursday, and the NFL filed two motions looking for the immediate dismissal of the claims.
Gruden resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in October 2021 after the publication of emails he despatched 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 profession by leaking the emails.
Within the movement filed Thursday and obtained by The Related 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.”
Beforehand, the Nevada Supreme Court docket had denied the league’s earlier enchantment of its ruling on Aug. 11 that Gruden can proceed together with his lawsuit and never undergo the league for arbitration.
The league’s attorneys mentioned within the movement: “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 movement to dismiss cites Nevada’s anti-SLAPP statute, which protects in opposition to lawsuits supposed to silence these exercising their First Modification 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 mentioned.
In 2022, the NFL appealed to Nevada’s excessive court docket after a choose in Las Vegas rejected league bids to dismiss Gruden’s declare outright or to order out-of-court talks by means of an arbitration course of that may very well be overseen by Goodell.
The excessive court docket, in a 5-2 ruling, mentioned 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 have been despatched.
He was the Raiders’ coach when the staff moved in 2020 to Las Vegas from Oakland, California. He’s looking for financial damages, saying that selective disclosure of the emails and their publication by the Wall Avenue Journal and the New York Instances ruined his profession and endorsement contracts.
Gruden coached the Raiders in Oakland from 1998 to 2001, then led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for seven years, successful a Tremendous Bowl title in 2003. After his stint at ESPN, he was employed by the Raiders in 2018.
He consulted for the New Orleans Saints in 2023. He’s now a component proprietor and marketing consultant for the Nashville Kats of the Enviornment Soccer One league.
