Jon Gruden NFL emails lawsuit: Nevada Supreme Court sides with league, sends case to arbitration

Jon Gruden's problems with the NFL are far from ending. Three years after the former Las Vegas Raiders head coach resigned from the job after the release of e-mails that contained racist language, the Nevada Supreme Court sided with the league and confirmed that he was ineligible to sue the league over the 2021 termination of his contract.

Gruden filed a lawsuit in November 2021 accusing the league of purposely releasing e-mails to harm his reputation. The e-mails, sent decades before he returned to the league as a head coach, were found by the NFL throughout their investigation inside the Washington Commanders, with former owner Dan Snyder at the center of the problem.

The league argued in the lawsuit that a clause in his contract ordered the former coach and ESPN employee to file his lawsuit through arbitration; however, Gruden's attorney said that, since he was no longer a league employee, there was no reason for him to file an arbitration.

What did Jon Gruden say?

Gruden, the former Las Vegas Raiders head coach, sent an email to Bruce Allen, the former team president of the Washington Commanders, in 2011 where he used racist, insensitive language to refer to NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith.

In the email, he called Smith "Dumborris Smith," and said that "he had lips the size of Michelin tires." At the time, Gruden worked for ESPN as an analyst on Monday Night Football, seven years before he got back into coaching with the Raiders.

The NFL and the NFLPA were in a tough spot in 2011, as the two sides couldn't come to an agreement on the terms of the new CBA, which forced a lockout that threatened the 2011 NFL season.

DeMaurice Smith, the former executive director of the NFLPA, released a statement after the former Raiders' coach's e-mails were released:

"This is not the first racist comment that I've heard and it probably will not be the last. This is a thick-skin job for someone with dark skin, just like it always has been for many people who look like me and work in corporate America.Racism like this comes from the fact that I'm at the same table as they are and they don't think someone who looks like me belongs. I'm sorry my family has to see something like this but I would rather they know. I will not let it define me."