Tyler Skaggs Family, Angels Reach Unfair-Death Settlement

The family of pitcher Tyler Skaggs and the Angels reached a settlement Friday, ending a contentious trial as jurors began a third day of deliberations in Skaggs’ drug-related death on the road with the team. Terms of the settlement, which followed 31 days of testimony and four years of legal wrangling, were not immediately available.

Foreman Richard Chung said after the verdict was announced that the panel agreed to award Skaggs’ family about $100 million when they were told to drop the case – $60 million to $80 million in economic damages, $5 million to $15 million in emotional distress damages and $10 million to $20 million in punitive damages.

Rusty Hardin, lead attorney for the Skaggs family, told The Times that while he could not disclose the amount of the settlement, “the Skaggs family is very pleased with the settlement.”

Initial attempts to settle the case were unsuccessful, as the Angels’ legal team and insurance carriers denied objections from attorneys representing Tyler Skaggs’ widow Carli Skaggs and parents Debbie Hetman and Darrell Skaggs. As recently as Tuesday evening, after the judges began deliberations, the lead attorneys for each side met but came up with nothing in the way of a settlement.

The equation changed Wednesday when jurors asked the jury to read testimony from experts about Skaggs’ future earnings if he were alive. The petition suggested that the jury decide that the Angels are responsible for at least a percentage of the economic damages. The judge also asked if he should be charged with determining the amount of punitive damages, adding to speculation that he might award the Skaggs family more than economic damages and emotional distress.

About 95% of civil cases nationwide reach a settlement before or during trial. Plaintiffs and defendants alike would much prefer to eliminate the risk of an all-or-nothing judge’s decision in terms of the dollar amount of the settlement.

Sources in the Skaggs family’s legal team said they agreed to settle the matter to eliminate the possibility of a jury ruling that the Angels were not responsible for Skaggs’ death and denying them any award. And, although both sides could challenge the judge’s decision, the settlement ended the case.

Carli Skaggs and Hetman hugged their attorneys together when Judge H. Shaina Colover announced that a verdict had been reached and the jury was discharged.

A jury ruling in favor of the Angels would have meant that Skaggs’ legal team who spent thousands of hours on the case would not have been paid. Their contingency fee – at least 40% of the prize – would be zero.

Skaggs died on July 1, 2019, on an Angels road trip to Texas after inhaling an illegal pain pill laced with fentanyl.

The pill was given to Skaggs by Angels communications director Eric Kay, who is serving 22 years in federal prison for his role in the pitcher’s death. Skaggs was found in her hotel room in Southlake, Texas, the next morning, and an autopsy concluded that she died of accidental asphyxiation after trying to vomit.

Each judge had to fill out a 26-question decision form during the interviews. The first set of questions focused on Kay, asking jurors whether the Angels were negligent in directing him, whether the team knew he was distributing illegal pills and whether he was working under his employ when he did so.

Carli Skaggs, the widow of Tyler Skaggs, and attorney Rusty Hardin after a settlement was reached in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Los Angeles Angels shortstop Tyler Skaggs in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana on Friday.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

If jurors answered “yes” to any of these questions, they were then asked whether the angels’ negligence and Kay’s “unfitness or incompetence” were major factors in Skaggs’ death, and the damage to his iPad.

The consideration for the iPad, which Skaggs used as a place to chop drugs, was only related to punitive damages.

The first damages the jury considered were economic. Lawyers for the Skaggs family have said that he would have made an estimated $102 million if he had lived and continued to play. Angels experts say his salary would not be more than $30 million.

During closing statements, Skaggs family attorney Daniel Dutko suggested that the Angels were 70 to 90 percent responsible for her death, and that Kay and Skaggs could each be charged with approximately 10 percent. Angels attorney Todd Theodora did not suggest a specific percentage, but acknowledged that a jury may find Kay guilty of Skaggs’ death.

And during closing statements, Dutko and Theodora walked the jurors through a nine-page decision form, suggesting how questions should be answered based on the evidence supporting their arguments. While criminal cases require the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, civil cases require only a preponderance of the evidence. At least nine of the 12 judges need to agree on a decision.

Dutko said for years the Angels were negligent in their dealings with Kay, a team employee since 1996 whose illegal opioid use came to light in 2009, according to testimony. Evidence shows the Angels covered up Kay’s addiction rather than following team and Major League Baseball policies in reporting and punishing Kay, Dutko told the judge.

“Does that make sense, is that how we want companies in our country to operate?” Dutko said. “They didn’t monitor anything, they didn’t do anything.”

“There’s no doubt that if Eric Kay had been hired by the Angels, if he hadn’t been in that clubhouse, Tyler Skaggs would be alive.”

Kay entered a rehab facility for substance abuse in the spring of 2019 and returned to work a few weeks before being sent with the Angels to Texas. Skaggs immediately texted Kay asking for oxycodone pills. Theodora argued that the messages showed that Skaggs was an out-of-control addict who did not care about Kay’s well-being.

Theodora showed the judge a pyramid-shaped figure with Skaggs at the top and the players shown evidence being given opioids by Skaggs below him, and argued that Skaggs was involved in drug distribution like Kay.

An attorney for the Angels told the judge that the plaintiffs’ case that Kay should have been fired also applies to Skaggs. “What you see here is a double standard,” said Theodora.

Dutko presented Theodora’s closing statement, returning to the theme that the angels were never responsible for Skaggs’ death and told jurors that they could clarify that by reaching a verdict in favor of his wife and parents.

“The reason Tyler Skaggs died was the Angels,” Dutko said. “We fought for Tyler Skaggs and I will continue to fight for Tyler Skaggs as long as I live, I need you to fight for him please.”

The judge was close to a verdict that would favor Skaggs’ family. Chung said the panel was discussing the issue of job allocation and it would have been done during the lunch break if they had not been told to stop discussing at around 9:30 in the morning.

He said his determination was that the Angels bore 50% of the blame for Skaggs’ death, while Kay was the one who killed 35% and Skaggs bore 15%.

“Ultimately, we felt that the Angels needed to know they were wrong,” Chung said. It’s just, ‘Do better.’ They should have done better.”