Las Vegas judge denies NFL motion to dismiss Jon Gruden lawsuit

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — The lawsuit between former Raiders head coach Jon Gruden and the National Football League will continue.

On Wednesday, Clark County District Court Judge Joe Hardy denied two NFL motions to dismiss the case. The case originally began after emails Gruden sent were allegedly leaked to the press during the NFL's investigation into the Washington Commanders over workplace harassment. A previous complaint stated the NFL gathered more than 650,000 emails as part of the investigation, including Gruden's, which were originally sent between 2011 and 2018 and included racist, misogynist, and homophobic comments.

Gruden's attorneys claim the NFL became aware of the emails in June 2021 and the first batch were leaked to the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 8, 2021. The same day, the Raiders stated they were reviewing materials provided to them by the NFL and on Oct. 11, 2021, Gruden resigned from the Raiders.

Gruden then filed a lawsuit against the NFL in November 2021 claiming the NFL carried out a "Soviet-style character assassination" in an attempt to take the heat off the NFL. Attorneys for the NFL have previously argued that Gruden has no one to blame for what happened but himself.

The case has already made it up to the Nevada Supreme Court with the court ruling 5-2 that the "arbitration clause in the NFL Constitution is unconscionable and does not apply to Gruden as former employee." The NFL had been trying to go through the arbitration process because those proceedings would not have been public.

The case was then sent back to district court.

When looking at what was addressed on Wednesday, the NFL's first motion wanted to have the case dismissed under Nevada's Anti-SLAPP statute, which deters weak lawsuits that punish or discourage free expression. The NFL claimed Gruden's allegations are "baseless."

"As the sworn declaration of Commissioner Roger Goodell attests, Commissioner Goodell did not provide Gruden's Emails to the press; he did not instruct or suggest that anyone else provide Gruden's Emails to the press; and, to this day, he — as Commissioner of the League — does not know who provided Gruden's Emails to the press," the motion reads in part. "[Gruden is] relying solely on his allegations and a couple of inadmissible hearsay news reports ... The very news reports. he cites, even if admissible, belie Gruden's own. assertions to this Court, because they admit that Gruden's lawyers believed that the source of the leak was the former owner of the Washington Football Team."

The second motion was for Judge Hardy to reconsider the original motion to dismiss the case. That was originally heard by Judge Nancy Allf, who denied the motion.

"We would respectfully be suggesting that Judge Allf got it wrong in the oral ruling and I would say that one important respect in which she did that is that as the court will be aware on what are really the primary claims that Gruden is pursuing, the claims for intentional interference with an existing contract and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, Judge Allf somewhat unusually did not resolve the primary issue on which we were litigating," said attorney Kannon Shanmugam.

Gruden's attorneys argued against both of the motions claiming the NFL is using stall tactics to try to drag out proceedings even longer.

"The plaintiff [Gruden] can actually be upfront with you in a way that we don't think the NFL defendants actually have been and they are filing this now to serially litigate and basically gain another four years without discovery by seeking a stay based on their Anti-SLAPP motion, which, again, they could have done in 2021," said attorney Adam Hosmer-Henner. "We think that their fear of discovery is exactly what leads to this and we think it's pretty transparent given the course of this case."

Ultimately, Judge Hardy ruled in favor of Gruden and allowed the case to proceed.

The next court hearing is scheduled for Jan. 12.