By Robert J. Romano, JD, LLM, St. John’s University, Senior Writer
In October of 2021, Jon Gruden stepped down as the head football coach of the Las Vegas Raiders after a series of homophobic, misogynistic, and racist emails he penned targeting Commissioner Roger Goodell, NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith, former NFL openly gay player Michael Sam, together with a number of other NFL owners, coaches, and media personalities, were published in both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. On October 11, 2021, Gruden publicly apologized stating, “I have resigned as Head Coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. I love the Raiders and do not want to be a distraction. Thank you to all the players, coaches, staff and fans of Raider Nation. I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone.”[1] Soon after resigning, Gruden, who returned to coaching in 2018 after agreeing to a 10-year, $100 million contract, reached an undisclosed ‘buy-out’ settlement of the remaining balance owed to him by the Raider organization.
Subsequently, on November 11, 2021, Gruden filed a federal lawsuit against the NFL and Commissioner Goodell in the United States District Court in Clark County, Nevada, wherein he alleged the following causes of action: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations, Tortious Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage, Negligence, Negligent Hiring, Negligent Supervision, Civil Conspiracy, and Aiding and Abetting. Gruden’s claims were based on what he described as a malicious and orchestrated campaign by the Commissioner to destroy both his career and reputation.[2] As asserted by his legal team, “the defendants (NFL and Goodell) selectively leaked Gruden’s private correspondence to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times in order to harm Gruden’s reputation and force him out of his job. There is no explanation or justification for why Gruden’s emails were the only ones made public out of the 650,000 emails collected in the NFL’s investigation of the Washington Football Team or for why the emails were held for months before being released in the middle of the Raiders’ season.”[3]
In January of 2022, the NFL responded by filing both a motion to dismiss and a motion to compel arbitration. As for the motion to dismiss, the NFL argued that it was not responsible for leaking the emails and therefore Gruden’s complaint is nothing but “a baseless attempt to blame the NFL and its Commissioner for the fallout from the publication of racist, misogynistic and homophobic emails that Gruden wrote and broadly circulated.”[4] The NFL highlighted the fact that Gruden does not dispute that he wrote the emails, nor does he allege that they were altered in any form or manner by a third-party. “Despite the clear risk that his emails would be forwarded, downloaded, printed, or otherwise monitored by any recipient workplace domain … Gruden proceeded to send profane, misogynistic, homophobic, and racist emails out to a group of individuals, including a WFT-hosted email address. As such, Gruden primarily assumed the risk that his emails could be circulated beyond the original recipient group, and possessed and distributed by the WFT, NFL and others.”[5] Therefore, the NFL contends that since Gruden has “no one to blame but himself,”[6] his complaint should be dismissed in its entirety.
The District Court, however, based on procedural considerations, denied the NFL’s motion. The Court’s decision was grounded on the fact that Nevada is a ‘notice pleading’ state wherein pleadings are used as a way to notify adverse parties of general issues in a case. This allows parties to state their claims in general terms without alleging detailed facts to support each claim and without worrying about hyper technical details.[7] Therefore, since the District Court believed that Gruden’s complaint met the procedural requirements associated with such a standard, it had no alternative but to deny the NFL’s request.
Regarding its motion to compel arbitration, the NFL argued that “under the clear terms of Gruden’s employment contract and the NFL’s Constitution and Bylaws to which Gruden is bound,” arbitration is the proper forum for resolution and an order should be issued to stay the action.[8] Gruden’s legal team countered by claiming that the arbitration clause in his contract does not apply because his lawsuit was filed after he had resigned from his position as the Raiders’ coach.[9] It was also noted that in league arbitration cases, Goodell himself could be the arbitrator, creating a clear conflict of interest in this case because he is named as a defendant.[10]
The District Court, agreeing with Gruden’s argument, stated that it was, “concerned with the commissioner having the sole power to determine any employee disputes,”[11] and denied the NFL’s motion to compel arbitration. Note, however, that the court’s denial of the two motions is not determinative of the merits of Gruden’s lawsuit and the case, barring an appeal, will now proceed to the discovery phase.
[1] Case No: A-1-844043-B Department 27, page 3, paragraph 9, and https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nfl/news/jon-gruden-emails-resigns-raiders-coach/1f7nbdnxccjat1momv1xkg9bpp.
[2] Case No: A-1-844043-B Department 27, page 1, paragraph 1.
[3]https://www.yardbarker.com/nfl/articles/judge_denies_nfls_motion_to_dismiss_jon_gruden_lawsuit/s1_13132_37533532
[4] https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-files-motion-to-dismiss-jon-gruden-lawsuit-compel-arbitration
[5] Id.
[6] https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-files-motion-to-dismiss-jon-gruden-lawsuit-compel-arbitration
[7] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/notice_pleading
[8] https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-files-motion-to-dismiss-jon-gruden-lawsuit-compel-arbitration
[9]https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/33983514/judge-denies-nfl-motions-dismiss-jon-gruden-lawsuit-move-arbitration
[10] https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-files-motion-to-dismiss-jon-gruden-lawsuit-compel-arbitration
[11] https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/33983514/judge-denies-nfl-motions-dismiss-jon-gruden-lawsuit-move-arbitration
