Lawyers for the NFL filed a motion to dismiss Jon Gruden’s lawsuit against the league, calling the claims “baseless” in a Nevada court request.
Gruden resigned as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in October following backlash from racist and insensitive email messages. Gruden claims the messages that were all dated to previous years were leaked by the NFL as part of an “orchestrated” and “malicious” campaign.
Gruden filed in district court in Nevada’s Clark County in November.
The two-time Raiders coach had six seasons remaining on a 10-year contract worth $100 million.
Messages published by the Wall Street Journal and other outlets were captured by the NFL as part of an investigation into the culture of the Washington Football Team. Many of the messages reported to be from Gruden were sent to team president Bruce Allen, who also had roots with the Raiders and worked with Gruden in Oakland.
Following Gruden’s resignation, Raiders owner Mark Davis called for the NFL to release all details related to the WFT investigation. Commissioner Roger Goodell said the NFL had no plans to make the breadth of the findings or additional email messages public.
The New York Times published details of a series of messages from Gruden with misogynistic and anti-gay language.
The NFL’s position in the Nevada filing points to Gruden not denying the legitimacy of the messages or claiming that they were somehow altered or edited.
“Gruden does not, and cannot, dispute that he wrote the published emails. He does not, and cannot, dispute that he sent those emails to multiple parties,” the NFL filing states. “Nor does he claim that they were somehow altered or edited and that the repugnant views espoused in them were not in fact expressed by him. Instead, Gruden filed the instant complaint against the NFL and the commissioner, painting himself as the victim in a fictional story and seeking money through baseless claims against the NFL.”
Attorneys for Gruden are arguing “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.”
–Field Level Media