Skaggs Case: Angels Under Scrutiny Over Pitcher’s Death, Negligence?

Wrongful Death Trial of Tyler Skaggs: The Case Against the Angels Deepens

The trial for the death of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs continues to reveal details about the handling of drug addiction within the team. The wrongful death lawsuit, entering its sixth week, highlights the difficulties faced by the team’s lawyers in convincing the jury that they were unaware of the addiction problems before Eric Kay, a team employee, provided a pill containing fentanyl that caused Skaggs’ death in 2019. The case focuses on how the team handled Kay’s drug addiction treatment and whether officials did enough to protect Skaggs, given Kay’s increasingly strange behavior, which raised questions about drug abuse by Kay’s wife and some Angels employees. Kay was present in Skaggs’ hotel room the night the latter suffered an overdose of alcohol and opioids, less than a month after Kay returned to work after a drug addiction treatment program. In Kay’s criminal trial in 2022, witnesses testified that Kay distributed pills to other players. The team doctor testified last week that he prescribed Kay more than 600 opioid pills over several years before learning how addictive they could be. Conflicting testimony from current and former Angels representatives has sharpened scrutiny over what the Angels knew and whether officials relayed concerns about Kay to Major League Baseball.

• Deborah Johnston, Angels’ Vice President of Human Resources, testified on Monday that the team worked with MLB to address Kay’s addiction, despite her own statement and the previous testimony of other Angels officials who said they had no knowledge of such coordination.
• The Skaggs family’s lawyers accused Johnston of perjury, a serious accusation. The Angels’ lawyers immediately denied the perjury accusation.
• Angels officials testified that they believed Kay’s problems stemmed from prescription medications to treat mental health issues, while clubhouse employees testified that they had witnessed or believed Kay had a drug problem.
• Angels officials testified that they believed Kay suffered from bipolar disorder, although Kay’s medical records when he entered rehabilitation in April 2019 showed no record of medication to treat bipolar disorder.
• Kay’s ex-wife, Camela, testified that she had no knowledge of a bipolar diagnosis.

The team doctor, Craig Milhouse, testified that he prescribed Kay 600 pills of the opioids Norco and Vicodin over a period of 44 months between 2009 and 2013. The essence of the case is whether the Angels knew that Kay was abusing drugs and providing them to players, including Skaggs, while working in his official capacity. Kay is serving 22 years in federal prison for providing the drug that killed Skaggs in a hotel room in Texas on July 1, 2019. The team maintains that he and Skaggs acted privately on their own time when the overdose occurred. The plaintiffs claim that the Angels put Skaggs in danger by continuing to employ Kay when his behavior showed signs of drug abuse. Angels officials say they are not responsible for Skaggs’ death, that they were unaware of his drug use, and that it was Skaggs’ reckless decision to mix alcohol with illicit drugs that killed him. Officials also testified that they did not know Kay was providing drugs to players when Skaggs died. The Skaggs family is seeking $118 million in estimated lost wages, in addition to possible punitive damages. Johnston testified last week that the franchise had worked with MLB to help Kay with his drug addiction. It’s the first time an Angels official has suggested that MLB was informed of Kay’s problem, a major point of controversy regarding the issue of the team’s responsibility. Johnston said that when the Angels investigate the possible use of illegal substances in the team’s facilities, one option is immediate termination, depending on the findings. “Another option is to work with MLB, as we did in this case, and with our doctor, Dr. [Erik] Abell,” he stated. Abell was the team’s liaison with MLB for these matters. Johnston also testified that Kay was subjected to drug tests under MLB’s policies, not those of the Angels. In a statement sent via text message, Angels’ attorney Todd Theodora wrote: “The accusation that Ms. Johnston committed perjury is completely false and defamatory. Her testimony was truthful based on several text messages recently shown to her that demonstrate that Dr. Abell was treating Eric Kay.” He added that Johnston “made no statement about whether Dr. Abell reported this to MLB.” An MLB spokesperson denied that the league knew about Kay’s drug use or was involved in Kay’s treatment. In separate comments over the weekend, Theodora and the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Rusty Hardin, discussed the issue of perjury, with Theodora characterizing the absence of a judge’s ruling on the accusation as a victory for her side, while Hardin insisted that no decision means the issue remains alive, including the plaintiffs’ efforts to obtain testimony from MLB.

California-based civil attorney Geoffrey Hickey said perjury can only be proven if Johnston made a false statement “willfully and knowingly” under oath. Hickey said Hardin has a “good faith argument,” but does not believe Johnston’s statements rise to the level of perjury. Johnston testified in a pre-trial deposition in September that no one had informed MLB about Kay’s drug use. He explained on Monday that he “learned additional information” about the Angels’ communications with MLB after giving his deposition. He said he could not recall the exact document where he learned the information. Kay’s immediate superior, Tim Mead, and Angels travel secretary Tom Taylor, testified earlier in the trial that Abell worked with Kay, but they did not mention reporting his case to MLB. Team doctor Milhouse testified that he believed Abell, the team sports psychologist, was the liaison with MLB for such matters. MLB documents state that players’ drug problems were subject to investigation and disciplinary monitoring by the MLB commissioner’s office.

While Angels officials testified that they never saw Kay use illicit drugs, former clubhouse assistant Kris Constanti testified that Kay told him he was taking Norco. Another former clubhouse assistant, Vince Willet, testified that he saw Kay crush and then inhale a pill in the Angels’ clubhouse kitchen during spring training.

Former locker room manager Keith Tarter testified that he suspected Kay was using drugs and that Kay told him in 2019 that he was worried because his supply of Suboxone, a medication to treat opioid dependence, was running out. Tarter said he never saw Kay use drugs. Milhouse testified that he did not learn of the true addictive nature of opioids until 2014 or 2015. He stopped prescribing them to Kay in 2013. Camela Kay testified that after her ex-husband suffered a crisis at Yankee Stadium the same year, she stated in front of Taylor and Mead that she was taking five Vicodin a day. Taylor denied it, and Mead said he did not remember the conversation. Milhouse also said that during 2009-2013, he usually only prescribed opioids in the short term and that he had put other patients on regimens and treatment amounts similar to Kay’s. Milhouse testified that he considered the use of opioids five times a day to be an addiction. The trial continues in Orange County Superior Court this week, with the witness schedule including Skaggs’ widow, Carli, and his mother, Debbie Hetman. Two jury members have already been excused, leaving two alternates for the rest of the case, which is scheduled to go to the jury in mid-December.