Four years later, the family of the deceased Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Angels, Two months after often contentious testimony in an Orange County Superior Court courtroom, jurors are set to begin deliberating whether Skaggs' widow and parents deserve hundreds of millions of dollars.
During closing statements Monday, plaintiffs' attorney Daniel Dutko argued that the Angels were negligent in failing to control Eric Kay, the drug-addicted public relations director who gave Skaggs the fentanyl that killed him in 2019.
However, Angels lawyer Todd Theodora insisted that Skaggs was a selfish and secretive opioid addict who manipulated Kay for years to get drugs for him. Theodora acknowledged that while Kay bears some responsibility, Skaggs' conduct must be held to the same standard.
“[Skaggs] died while doing what we teach our children and grandchildren not to do – not crush and snort pills on the street,” Theordora said, later adding: “What you see here is a classic double standard.”
But it's not just Skaggs' family and the Angels who have a lot riding on the jury's decision. Among the influential stakeholders who have been watching closely are the agencies that insure the Angels.
According to people familiar with the Angels' defense, the team is insured by several companies, each providing coverage with varying limits, and it is possible that those insurers could help settle the case before the jury reaches its verdict.
“Insurance companies are in the business of reducing risk; they don’t like uncertainty,” said Brian Panish, an insurance analyst. Los Angeles Personal Injury Lawyer who was not involved in the case but won several landmark jury verdicts. “They calculate the risk and go from there. In this case, we're talking about multiple insurance companies, an insurance tower.”
Even though the insurance companies are representing the Angels, they may ultimately reduce the risk for the Skaggs family and their lawyers through an 11th-hour settlement.
Legal experts say that in cases where huge sums of money are at stake, both sides can reach a so-called “high-low” settlement, in which insurance companies promise to pay plaintiffs an agreed-upon amount even if the jury awards nothing. In exchange, plaintiffs agree to an agreed-upon maximum award, even if the jury thought they deserved more.
The nightmare outcome for the Skaggs family would be that the jury would award them nothing, meaning that in addition to widow Carly Skaggs and parents Debbie Hetman and Darrel Skaggs leaving empty-handed, their high-powered legal team, who spent thousands of hours on the case, would not get paid. Their contingency fee—typically 35% to 40% of the fee—will be zero.
The deal with the Angels ensures that Skaggs' lawyers will be paid and the family will get some money even if the jury denies them something. The high-low agreement usually remains confidential, and all but the principles trust the jury's decision.
Both sides struggle to assess the risk before the jury reaches a verdict. Another source of information for the Angels was the “shadow jury,” about a half-dozen people hired by insurance companies to sit in on the trial and provide feedback to the Angels' lawyers about their reactions to the testimony.
Then negotiations may begin, which will have little time left.
“Who will blink first?” – said Panish. “The posturing and maneuvering is over. The hay is in the barn. The bricks are stacked. I would be very surprised if they weren't already talking.”
A person familiar with behind-the-scenes negotiations between the two sides said one insurer with a relatively low limit of coverage for the Angels — near the base of the tower — was blocking progress on the settlement. The insurance companies ultimately made a “low offer” more than a month ago, which was rejected by the Skaggs family.
“If the settlement offer is within the limits of the insurance policy, the defense will be forced to settle the case,” Panish said. “But if the amount exceeds the limit, say the coverage is $50 million and the demand is $100 million, the insurance companies will not be able to force the Angels to pay compensation because they will have to pay the excess amount.”
The facts of Skaggs' death are not in dispute. An autopsy revealed that the 27-year-old left-hander died accidentally from asphyxia after aspirating his own vomit. under the influence fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol on the night of July 1, 2019, while the Angels were in Texas for a three-game series against the Rangers.
Kay provided Skaggs with a counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl and serving 22 years in federal prison for his role in the death.
The Skaggs family's legal team, led by attorneys Rusty Hardin, Sean Holley and Dutko, argued that several Angels employees knew about Kaye's decades-long addiction to opioids and ignored team and Major League Baseball policies by not reporting Kaye or disciplining him.
Dutko said Kay acted within the scope of his official duties when he gave Skaggs and several other players opioid pills, a position Theodora strongly opposes. Dutko cited testimony that Kay did everything he could to please the players – buying them prescriptions for Viagra and marijuana vape pens, booking tee times and massages, and entertaining them by taking a fastball off his knee and eating the pimples on the back of star outfielder Mike Trout.
“From Viagra to e-cigarettes to opioids, Eric Kay's job was to give players everything they wanted,” Dutko said. “This is a systematic failure over and over again.”
Theodora consistently portrayed Skaggs as a conniving drug addict who callously forced Kay to get pills for him and distributed pills to teammates, even having Kay deliver opioids shortly after the longtime employee and admitted drug addict left rehab.
Theodora acknowledged that the jury could have found Kay to be partially responsible for Skaggs' death and awarded a percentage of damages to his family, but the evidence showed that Skaggs sought to hide his drug addiction the entire time he worked for the Angels.
Testimony from five of Skaggs' teammates dating back to 2011 was highlighted by Theodora, who alleged that not only did Skaggs' drug use increase over a nine-year period, but that the pitcher personally received player pills from Kay.
“It’s called the distribution chain,” Teodora said. “This is an illegal activity that [Skaggs and Kay] hidden because they didn't want the team to know about it. They didn’t even tell their wives.”
The Skaggs family is seeking not only compensation for lost earnings and emotional damages, but also punitive damages. California law does not allow punitive damages in wrongful death cases, but precedent dating back to the OJ Simpson case makes an exception if a person suffered property damage before death.
Skaggs' attorneys believe Kay is responsible for contaminating the pitcher's iPad with fentanyl, which was confiscated and never returned to the family. Theodora countered by pointing out that Skaggs crushed and snorted the pills on the iPad's lid rather than on the surface, and that “the iPad business is actually ridiculous.”
“The jury must first find the defendant liable for damages for economic and emotional distress, and then a second deliberation will determine whether punitive damages are appropriate,” he said. Edson K. McClellanIrvine lawyer specializing in high-value civil and employment litigation. “The purpose of punitive damages is to send a message to the defendant: Don’t do it again.”
McClellan said the goal of the closing statement is to “sway hearts,” to convince jurors who may have been undecided. Both sides made passionate arguments that the case they presented over the course of two months supported the verdict in their favor.
Final arguments will take place Tuesday before the case goes to the jury. Judge H. Shayna Colover stressed she wants to reach a verdict by Friday. Unlike a criminal trial, which requires all 12 jurors to agree on guilt or innocence, in a civil trial only nine of 12 are needed to reach a verdict and agree on damages.
