The NFL lost again in the Brian Flores racial discrimination case Monday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied a request by the NFL and its teams for a full court review of an August decision that sided with Flores and said that his claims against three teams must be heard in open court. A three-judge panel had ruled in August that Flores’s claims against the Giants, Broncos, and Texans cannot be forced into NFL-controlled arbitration, but his case against the Dolphins can.
The league has lost several high-profile legal disputes over arbitration recently, including in its fight against former coach Jon Gruden, who has also fought for several years to keep his case out of arbitration.
Flores, who is currently the Vikings defensive coordinator, filed a class action suit in 2022 against the NFL, Giants, Broncos, and Dolphins claiming racial discrimination in the league’s interview and hiring processes as well as during his tenure as head coach in Miami. Shortly after the initial filing, the Texans were added as defendants, and former coaches Steve Wilks and Ray Horton joined as plaintiffs. (Wilks is now defensive coordinator for the Jets.) The league denied some of Flores’s claims at the time, but investigated others. The NFL ultimately found Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and vice chairman Bruce Beal had violated the league’s anti-tampering policy with Tom Brady and Sean Payton, fined them, and took away draft picks.
The case has dragged out as the NFL has tried to force it into arbitration. In 2023, a judge ruled that Flores had to take his claims against the Dolphins into arbitration, as was dictated by the contract he signed with the team, but could pursue his case against the NFL and other teams—which never employed him—in open court. The August ruling by the three-judge panel upheld that decision, and Monday’s order denied wider review of it. A spokesperson for the NFL declined to comment on the latest development. After the three-judge panel decision in August, the league said: “We respectfully disagree with the panel’s ruling, and will be seeking further review.” Flores’s attorney also declined to comment on Monday’s decision.
Flores has also fought the 2023 decision pushing his claims against the Dolphins into arbitration. Flores, Wilks, and Horton filed for reconsideration last month, arguing the NFL’s arbitration process was flawed and at a “complete standstill” because of the league’s stalling since November 2024. The NFL-appointed arbitrator then tried to pick things back up, which led to Flores’s attorneys asking the court to stay the process and claimed the arbitrator, Peter Harvey, has “bias on behalf of the NFL’s interests.”
The NFL also requested for the Nevada Supreme Court to rehear its August decision to allow Gruden’s case to proceed in court instead of arbitration. The court unanimously rejected that request on Thursday. The court found that the NFL’s policy is “unconscionable”, in part, because commissioner Roger Goodell can arbitrate disputes about his own actions. Gruden resigned from his job as head coach of the Raiders in 2021 when emails leaked containing racist, misogynistic, and anti-gay slurs from his time as an ESPN analyst. The former coach claims the league and Goodell leaked the emails in order to ruin his career.
