Jon Gruden is down, but he’s not yet out.
After losing in the Nevada Supreme Court on the question of whether his lawsuit against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell will be resolved in open court or in the league’s secret, rigged, kangaroo court of arbitration, Gruden has more moves to make.
We’re told, not surprisingly, that he intends to continue to fight. Based on the Nevada Rules of Appellate Procedure, his first step will be to make a request for a rehearing before the three judges who narrowly decided the question, by a 2-1 vote. If/when the request for a rehearing is denied, Gruden will petition for a rehearing before all seven justices of the Nevada Supreme Court.
The fact that he got one out of three on his side means he could, in theory, get four out of seven.
After the Nevada Supreme Court issues the final ruling on the matter, whoever loses can try to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court. That’s what the NFL did with the Rams relocation case.
In the U.S. Supreme Court, the first step would be for the court to decide whether to take the case. Of the many petitions the U.S. Supreme Court gets, only very few are accepted.
If the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case, chances are the NFL will win. It’s one of the basic realities of political ideologies. Conservative judges are far more likely to be pro-business. Progressive judges are far more likely to be pro-worker. Currently, the court has a 6-3 split on conservative and progressive justices.
Most people don’t understand that; there’s no day-to-day reason to. They make political decisions based on social issues and/or tax brackets. Getting a fair shake in the civil justice system when you have a claim against a big company rarely enters the electoral equation, even though the sitting president appoints a judge for every vacancy that arises in the federal court system during that president’s term.
For Gruden, who leans to the right, judges who share his views will be more inclined to send his case to arbitration. And that’s probably something he never considered when crafting his beliefs.
For more on the Gruden case, check out the attached video, which takes a close look at how the case got to where it is and where it might be going.