Following about two months of hearing evidence, jurors in the wrongful-death lawsuit against the Los Angeles Angels began hearing closing arguments Monday regarding the fatal opioid overdose of pitcher Tyler Skaggs six years ago.
Attorney Daniel Dutko, who represents the parents and widow of Skaggs, focused on former public relations staffer Eric Kay’s struggles with drug addiction and dispensing of pills to seven players on the team as the primary cause of Skaggs’ demise.
“We believe Tyler Skaggs should be alive today,” Dutko said. “We wanted the truth to come out. The same cannot be said of the Angels.”
He accused team officials of “gaslighting” the jury and argued that even after repeated problems and drug rehab stints for Kay, the team ignored what he was doing.
Dutko argued that team officials tried to make the case that they worked with Major League Baseball on Kay’s drug issues, but, “Major League Baseball never knew anything about Eric Kay. … There is no evidence Major League Baseball was ever involved.”
He accused the team’s attorneys of “moving the goal post” when that fact was revealed during the trial as they made the case that Kay was treated by Dr. Eric Abell and that he was “somehow qualified” to address his addictions to prescription pain killers.
“He has no training, no expertise, no knowledge of treatment of drugs,” Dutko argued. “When we pointed that out, the goal posts shifted again.”
Another doctor who treated Kay “had nothing to do with Major League Baseball,” Dutko said.
“That’s not telling you the truth. That’s trying to deceive you,” Dutko said.
Kay was convicted in federal court in Texas of providing a fatal dose of fentanyl to Skaggs on a road trip to play the Rangers in July of 2019 and is serving a 22-year federal prison sentence.
“They kept paying Eric Kay” after it was revealed that Kay said he saw Skaggs snorting drugs in his hotel room the night before he was found dead, Dutko said. His paychecks stopped when Kay met with Drug Enforcement Administration agents and his attorney issued a statement to the media, Dutko argued.
The team paid him through October of that year but stopped “because he went to the press and they didn’t like that,” Dutko said, adding the team was also still footing his legal bills in his habeas petition to overturn his conviction.
Dutko also went over evidence in testimony from Kay’s boss at the time, Tim Mead, and the team’s travel agent, Tom Taylor, regarding an “intervention” in 2017 with Kay that led to them finding baggies of pills stuffed into shoes at Kay’s home.
Dutko also attacked the testimony of an expert witness who testified that Skaggs drank about 13 beers the night before he died and ingested fentanyl and oxycodone, which the expert said contributed to Skaggs’ death. Dutko said the expert used discredited methods to arrive at his conclusions.
“We all know fentanyl killed Tyler Skaggs,” Dutko said.
Kay was using his work email to obtain fentanyl from “the street” and failed to warn the players the pills they were getting were counterfeit and dangerous, Dutko argued.
Dutko also ridiculed another expert for the team who said the pitcher’s future earnings would have been $30 million based on a comparison of 18 pitchers. Dutko said seven of the pitchers were relievers, two pitched in the 1940s and two others in the 1960s, when there was a lot less training options for athletes.
Dutko pointed to Kay’s episode in the press box at a Yankees-Angels game in 2013 in which the staffer had to be bused back to his hotel room because he was so high. Dutko argued that Kay admitted to Mead then that he had a five-a-day habit for Vicodin.
“He confesses to taking five Vicodins a day and they don’t do an investigation,” Dutko said. “They don’t even follow their own policies.”
Dutko said Kay received a “hush hush” rehab stint in 2015.
“He told Tim Mead in 2017 about doing drugs with Tyler Skaggs,” Dutko argued. “Do they investigate it, report it to the police? … They do nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
In 2019, Kay had an “overdose” at work, Dutko said.
“Think about it. He has a drug overdose at work … and you know what they do? They send him home,” Dutko argued.
Kay’s wife told Taylor then that a bottle of pills found that day were for Skaggs, Dutko argued.
“This is a systemic breakdown over and over again,” Dutko argued.
Angels President John Carpino was the final witness in the trial on Friday. Before him, Angels executive Molly Jolly, the team’s chief financial officer, testified in the team’s defense.
Carpino and Jolly said they were unaware of the substance-abuse issues of Skaggs or Kay.
Carpino discussed how he was alerted to the news that Kay saw Skaggs snorting drugs in his hotel room while the team was on a road trip July 1, 2019, to play the Texas Rangers.
“I called counsel and asked how do we get a hold of authorities in Texas,” Carpino said.
Team officials met with federal prosecutors, the Drug Enforcement Agency and FBI, but “no charges were ever brought against the team,” Carpino said. “We were never indicted or accused of any wrongdoing. It was strictly pinned on Eric Kay.”
Carpino said that, in hindsight, he wished he knew of the problems the two were having with their addictions.
“I wish somebody said something to me,” he said. “We would have gotten him the help he needed.”
Skaggs’ death “affected me deeply,” Carpino said. “He was part of our family.”
Carpino likened it to the pain the team felt when pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed in a drunken driving crash in 2009.
Under questioning from plaintiffs attorney Rusty Hardin, Carpino said the team has helped Kay with his legal bills in his appeals.
“I don’t believe Eric Kay had proper representation in Texas,” Carpino said. “We’re paying for his habeas petition.”
Skaggs “was a drug addict and dealer,” Carpino testified. “And Kay was dealing drugs and was an addict as well.”
The lawsuit filed by the late athlete’s widow and parents seeks $118 million in future earnings damages plus punitive damages.
The team’s attorneys say Skaggs struggled mightily with his own addiction to painkillers over the years and that his death was a result of his mixing alcohol and drugs. They argue the dose of fentanyl wasn’t potent enough to kill the pitcher by itself.
The drugs were more potent because Skaggs was snorting them instead of getting them processed by his liver when swallowing a pill, the team’s attorneys contend.
Skaggs shared pills with teammates Cam Bedrosian, C.J. Cron, Blake Parker, Mike Morin and Matt Harvey, but it was a “small circle,” and they hid it from the rest of the team, team attorney Todd Theodora said in his opening statement of the trial.
Kay was also struggling with mental-health issues and would blame some of his bizarre behavior on issues with his prescription medication for bipolar disorder, Theodora said.
The team had obligations legally to help Kay with his mental-health issues, Theodora said.