Attorneys argue over whether Eric Kay or Tyler Skaggs himself was responsible for the Angels pitchers’ shocking death

A secret drug addict who took advantage of an Angels employee and introduced other players to opioids, or the victim of an unscrupulous ball club staffer who failed to mention the danger of the street drugs he was providing — jurors will have to grapple with sharply opposing portraits of Tyler Skaggs as they will soon decide whether the Angels bear any responsibility for the pitcher’s shocking 2019 death.

After two months of testimony and more than 40 witnesses, the high-profile civil wrongful death trial of Tyler Skaggs drew toward an end with closing arguments on Monday, Dec. 15 in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana.

Six years ago, Skaggs, 27, died alone in a Texas hotel room at the start of a team road trip. He had crushed and snorted a counterfeit pill containing fentanyl — which had been provided by Angels communications staffer Eric Kay — and had consumed oxycodone and alcohol. Kay was convicted and sentenced to prison for his role in Skaggs’ death. Now, a civil jury will decide if the Angels are also responsible.

Closing arguments in the trial — like much of the testimony — focused largely on Skaggs and Kay. Both men were friendly and well liked by those who knew them, yet both also harbored apparently long-running drug addictions that led Skaggs to an early death and Kay to a federal penitentiary.

Front office employees testified that they were unaware that Kay had a drug problem or that he provided pills to players. But members of the clubhouse said Kay’s drug use was well known in the organization and Kay’s ex-wife — as well as Kay himself through a comment to police — contended that the team was warned prior to Skaggs’ death that Kay was providing him opioid pills.

The team did nothing to prevent Kay from providing Skaggs with illicit opioid pills or to investigate signs of Kay’s own drug use, Daniel Dutko, an attorney for the Skaggs family, said during his closing arguments. Drug use was pervasive in the organization at the time, the attorney argued.

“How many players does it take?” Dutko asked. “There are 25 players on a team. There are seven players receiving drugs from Kay that we know about.”

Kay was effectively distributing the pills “for Angels baseball,” the plaintiff attorney argued.

“He was giving these pills out in his Angels uniform, at Angels Stadium, in the clubhouse,” Dutko told jurors. “They would give him some money and he would put it in their locker.”

“Do you think he was doing it for himself?” the attorney added.

The team knew that baseball players have long sought drugs in order to gain a competitive edge and to deal with the physical toll the sport has on their bodies, whether through “greenies” — amphetamine pills — or cocaine in earlier eras or opioids in more recent years, Dutko argued. Part of Kay’s job was to stay in the good graces of Angels players by doing favors for them — such as setting up tee times or getting tickets to other sporting events — so that the players would agree to interviews with the media or promotional appearances, the attorney added.

“The Angels knew this, everybody knew this,” Dutko said. “He is doing things they (players) like, which is exactly what Angels baseball wants him to do.”

The attorney noted that Kay’s wife described him having marijuana vape pens around their house for players. And jurors during the trial were shown a text exchange in which Kay asked the team doctor for Viagra for a player.

“Why do you think players felt comfortable to go to the director of communications (Kay) to get a prescription for Viagra from the team doctor?” Dutko asked.

The players apparently believed that Kay was getting the opioid pills from some sort of official source, the attorney said. But Kay was actually purchasing the pills from dealers he met online. In some of the messages Kay sent the dealers — including messages tied to his work email — Kay express concern that the illicit pills could contain fentanyl.

“These guys didn’t know that Eric Kay was getting it off the street,” Dutko said. “He gave them these drugs without warning, without any information about what they could contain.”

Kay — after what co-workers described as a panic attack in a press box at Yankee Stadium in 2013 — allegedly told other Angels employees about his drug use. Kay’s co-workers were aware of an intervention Kay’s family held for him in 2017, and in 2019 Kay was hospitalized after apparently overdosing on drugs at work. Kay later told a Texas detective that he informed his boss in 2017 that he was doing drugs with Skaggs, and Kay’s ex-wife testified to warning an Angels communications employee months before Skaggs’ death that Kay had opioid pills for the pitcher.

The Angels, when they traded for Skaggs in late 2013, were not aware that he had battled an addiction to Percocet while playing for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Angels attorney Todd Theodora said. A fellow player said Skaggs was using opioids as far back as 2011, and had progressed to five pills a day by 2013, when Skaggs informed his family and agent about his problem.

“They set his salary thinking he was not a drug addict and was in peak mental and physical shape,” Theodora told jurors.

“What condition was his body in? What condition was his mind in? Why did he always fall off a cliff and deteriorate the second half of every season,” Theodora added.

Despite Skaggs’ family’s belief at the time he stopped using opioids in 2013, Theodora noted that texts shown during the trial — along with testimony by other players — indicated that Skaggs kept using illicit opioid pills — which he and others called “blue boys” or “blues” due to their distinctive color — during his entire tenure with the Angels.

“He would go into the clubhouse bathroom and use the lid of the toilet paper dispenser to chop up pills and snort them,” Theodora said.

The other players testified that it was Skaggs who introduced them to opioids and informed them that Kay could procure the pills. Theodora argued that while Kay was “complicit,” it was Skaggs who was “more of a danger to his fellow players.”

“They (the players) identified Eric Kay as someone who would do their dirty work for them,” Theodora said. “He was their drug gopher.”

“What he (Kay) did was wrong,” the attorney added. “But he was big-leagued by these super stars.”

When Kay was in drug rehab and Skaggs couldn’t get opioids from him, Skaggs turned to fellow pitcher Matt Harvey for illicit pills, Harvey has said. Five pink Percocet pills apparently given to Skaggs by Harvey were found in Skaggs’ hotel room after his death.

“You can’t prevent a drug addict from getting counterfeit pills and chopping them up and snorting them,” Theodora said. “They are going to do it anyway.”

The exact amount of financial damages at play will depend solely on the jury. The two sides provided vastly different estimates as to what Skaggs’ future earnings could have been, up to $32 million according to the Angels or $101 million according to attorneys for the Skaggs family.

Attorneys for the family didn’t provide a suggested value for their loss of love and companionship, but suggested it should be more than the economic damages.

“It is worth more than a baseball contract, I’ll tell you that,” Dutko said. “If players are making a hundred million dollars, what is a life worth?”

Theodora told jurors that it was “shameful” to argue that a player was justified in using illicit opioids due to the rigors of a Major League Baseball season, and the need to play through injury.

“The family should not be rewarded for Tyler’s gross misconduct in concealing his addiction,” the attorney added.

Depending on what jurors decide, the verdict could also potentially open the door to pricey punitive damages.

Attorneys for the Skaggs family are scheduled to offer a rebuttal argument on Tuesday morning. Then, jurors will begin their deliberations.