The NFL wants to keep its business out of the courts.
But in order to do that, it will first need an assist from the top court in the land.
The NFL petitioned the Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a ruling that allowed Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores’s case against the league to move forward in open court.
Flores sued the league and several teams in 2022 alleging racial discrimination in the interview and hiring process for coaches, claiming he had talks with some teams only because they needed to comply with the league’s Rooney Rule, and not because they were seriously interested in hiring him.
The NFL has been fighting for years to keep Flores’s case—and Jon Gruden’s—in league-controlled arbitration, but courts have sided with both former coaches in recent months. In October, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said it would not reconsider its August opinion that most of Flores’s case could proceed to trial. Similarly, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled in October that it would not rehear its decision allowing Gruden’s case to head to open court.
Courts in both cases have taken issue with the fact that commissioner Roger Goodell can be or select the final arbitrator and set arbitration proceedings for all league issues. This factor is particularly relevant in Gruden’s case, because he named the commissioner as a defendant, claiming Goodell and the league intentionally leaked old emails containing racist, misogynistic, and anti-gay slurs that led him to resign from the Raiders.
In the 34-page filing to the Supreme Court, the league, Broncos, Giants, and Texans argue that the Second Circuit’s decision went against court rulings in similar cases as well as the 100-year-old Arbitration Act.
“If the decision is allowed to stand, judges will predictably view that boundless discretion as a license to find arbitration agreements of all kinds inapplicable based on an amorphous and standardless invocation of procedural inadequacy,” the filing reads.
An attorney for Flores declined to comment. A representative for the NFL did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Supreme Court’s website says the petition was filed on Friday and docketed on Tuesday, and that Flores’s team has until Feb. 5 to issue a response.
The Supreme Court does not take up most petitions. According to its website, it receives more than 7,000 of these types of petitions every year, and only accepts roughly 100 to 150 of them. The Supreme Court has sided against the NFL in cases of antitrust law, though it decided in 2016 that it would not rehash lower courts’ decisions to approve concussion settlements to players.
Some of Flores’s claims are staying in arbitration for now. In 2023, a judge ruled that his claims against the Dolphins could stay in arbitration because unlike the other teams, the Dolphins employed Flores under a contract detailing arbitration proceedings.
The coordinator has been fighting that decision, claiming in September that the league-appointed arbitrator had been stalling and shortly thereafter asking the court to halt the arbitration. Two other Black coaches, Ray Horton and Steve Wilks, have joined Flores as co-plaintiffs.
Flores is expected to be a top target for teams with head coach openings this offseason, and the Ravens have already requested to interview him after firing John Harbaugh.
