Former Raiders coach Jon Gruden asking full Nevada Supreme Court to reconsider NFL emails lawsuit

LAS VEGAS — Jon Gruden is asking the entire Nevada Supreme Court to reconsider a decision by a three-justice panel to throw out a lawsuit he filed against the NFL over emails leaked to the media before he resigned as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in 2021.

Attorneys for Gruden filed documents Monday after the panel split 2-1 in a May 14 decision that said the league can move the civil contract interference and conspiracy case out of state court and into arbitration that might be overseen by one of the defendants, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

The same three justices on July 1 denied, by the same 2-1 margin, a request from Gruden's attorneys to reconsider. Two justices said Gruden knew the NFL used arbitration to resolve disputes. The dissenting justice said it would be “outrageous” for Goodell to arbitrate a dispute in which he is a named defendant.

An NFL spokesman declined Tuesday to comment and attorneys for Gruden and the league didn’t respond to email messages about Monday's court filing.

It was the latest development in Gruden's lawsuit alleging that Goodell and the league forced Gruden to resign from the Raiders by leaking emails containing racist, sexist and homophobic comments that Gruden sent when he was an on-air game analyst at ESPN about Goodell and others in the NFL.

The league first appealed to the seven-member state high court after a judge in Las Vegas decided in May 2022 that a jury could hear Gruden’s argument that by leaking only his documents the league acted with “specific intent” to force him to resign in November 2021.

Gruden was Raiders head coach when the team moved in 2020 to Las Vegas from Oakland, California. His lawsuit seeks monetary damages, alleging that selective disclosure of the emails and their publication by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times ruined his career and endorsement contracts.

Gruden coached in the NFL from 1990 to 2008 in Oakland and in Tampa Bay, where he led the Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title in 2003. He spent several years as a TV analyst for ESPN before being hired by the Raiders again in 2018.