Angels, Skaggs family reach last-minute settlement

SANTA ANA, Calif. — The Los Angeles Angels agreed Friday to a last-minute settlement with the family of deceased pitcher Tyler Skaggs after jurors, deliberating for more than two days, sent queries that suggested the verdict might go in the family’s favor.

The amount and terms of the settlement — ending a yearslong battle over culpability in Skaggs’ death — were not immediately disclosed. The Skaggs family had been seeking $118 million in potential lost earnings plus added damages.

Skaggs’ family sued the Angels after Tyler Skaggs died in 2019 after an Angels employee, Eric Kay, gave him a fentanyl-laced pill that killed him. Kay is serving a 22-year federal prison sentence for his role in Skaggs’ death. If Kay hadn’t provided that pill, jurors were instructed, Skaggs would not have died that night.

Lawyers for the Skaggs family and the Angels were in discussions Friday morning both outside the courtroom and privately in front of Judge H. Shaina Colover as the jury began its third day of deliberations. Settlement talks picked up in earnest Thursday, according to a source.

On Wednesday, the jury asked questions about the testimony of the five wage experts and about whether the jury would also be allowed to award punitive damages. Throughout the trial, the jury heard baseball wage experts testify that Skaggs’ lost career wages ranged from $21 million to nearly $125 million.

Jurors sat through 31 days of courtroom drama, which included testimony and depositions from 44 witnesses and arguments from attorneys. They viewed 312 exhibits.

The jury instructions required answers of up to 26 questions that varied from easy-to-answer stipulations of fact to more complicated assessments of negligence or culpability. Nine of 12 jurors had to agree on each question — but not necessarily the same nine jurors.

In the end, the jury did not get to render a verdict or assign “percentages of responsibility” among Skaggs, Kay and the Angels.

Angels lead attorney Todd Theodora argued it was “undisputed in this case that Eric was doing this on his own” and that the Angels were unaware Kay was distributing pills.

Plaintiffs attorney Daniel Dutko argued that the Angels knew of Kay’s drug problem, pointing to a Drug Enforcement Agency interview with Kay after Skaggs’ death that stated Kay had told his superior in 2017 that he and Skaggs were doing drugs.

The Skaggs family argued the Angels did nothing to prevent or monitor Kay’s drug abuse and did not discipline or terminate him. By doing so, the family said, the team put Skaggs in harm’s way.

“We’ve spent two months in trial,” Dutko said during his closing argument. “At any point have the Angels taken any responsibility?”

The Angels claimed they were not aware of Skaggs’ drug addiction and that he concealed it from the team. Theodora said the club signed Skaggs “under false pretenses” because he did not disclose his prior addiction to Percocet and that not even his wife knew about his previous addiction.

Angels attorneys said Kay was not operating in the scope of his employment when he provided pills to Skaggs and other players and that team officials were unaware of Kay’s illicit drug activity. The Angels argued it was Skaggs’ reckless decisions that led to his death.