Nevada Court Rules Jon Gruden Can’t Sue NFL Over Dismissal As Raiders Coach

Former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden has been embroiled in a lawsuit against the NFL since his dismissal in 2021. Gruden accused the league and Commissioner Roger Goodell of directly leaking racist e-mails to force him out as Raiders coach.

The league however, argued that Gruden was ineligible to sue the league due to a clause in his contract as Raiders coach, and a Nevada court ruled in the NFL’s favor calling for arbitration between the sides, via ESPN News Services:

A three-judge panel of Nevada’s Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with the NFL against former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden, saying that he was subject to arbitration even as a former employee and thus ineligible to sue the league over his 2021 termination.

Justices Elissa F. Cadish and Kristina Pickering reversed a district court’s order that denied the NFL’s motion to force Gruden’s complaint into its arbitration process. The case was remanded to the lower court with an order to grant the arbitration motion.

But the fight isn’t over just yet as Gruden’s attorney will reportedly look to get a hearing before all of the Nevada Supreme Court Justices:

The NFL has argued for courts to toss out Gruden’s claim, saying a clause in his contract with the Raiders required him to file his claim through league arbitration.

Gruden attorney Adam Hosmer-Henner argued that arbitration, a process that is controlled by the NFL and where any discovery would not be made public, would be unfair to his client because Gruden is no longer a league employee.

Hosmer-Henner said Gruden would seek a hearing before all seven justices of the Nevada Supreme Court.

“The panel’s split decision would leave Nevada an outlier where an employer can unilaterally determine whether an employee’s dispute must go to arbitration and also allow the employer to adjudicate the dispute as the arbitrator,” Hosmer-Henner said.

With legal issues such as this, there are always a number of steps and appeals that may or may not happen, so even with this ruling, things may not stay how they are at the moment. The Raiders themselves are unlikely to get involved in any of this as they have moved on and are focused on what is going on under their roof.

Raiders 2024 regular season schedule set to be released on May 15

The current Las Vegas Raiders are focused on getting back on the field and making a postseason run in 2024. Their road to doing so will be known very soon as the NFL is set to release the entire regular season schedule on May 15.

While the Raiders’ opponents are known, the schedule itself is not, but soon, the team will see the path it will have to take to get back into the playoffs.