Angels insurers may play role in Skaggs wrongful death trial

Four years after the family of deceased Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs filed a wrongful death suit against the Angels, and two months after often controversial testimony in an Orange County Superior Court courtroom, jurors are set to begin deliberations over whether Skaggs’ widow and parents deserve hundreds of millions of dollars.

During closing statements Monday, plaintiffs’ attorney Daniel Dutko argued the Angels were negligent in failing to supervise Eric Kay, the drug-addicted team communications director who gave Skaggs the fentanyl that killed him in 2019.

However, Angels attorney Todd Schuyler insisted that Skaggs was a selfish, secret drug addict who had manipulated Kay for years into getting him drugs. Schuyler told the jury that the Angels owed no reward to the Skaggs family.

“He died doing things that we teach our children and grandchildren not to do: not to chop and snort pills in the street,” Schuyler said.

But it’s not just Skaggs’ family and the Angels who greatly depend on the jury’s decision. Among the powerful players who followed the debates closely were the agencies that insure the Angels.

According to people familiar with the Angels’ defense, the team is insured by several companies that each offer coverage with different limits, and it is possible that those insurers could facilitate a settlement of the case even before the jury returns its verdict.

“Insurance companies are in the business of mitigating risk; they don’t like uncertainty,” said Brian Panish, a Los Angeles personal injury attorney who was not involved in the case but has won several historic jury verdicts. “They calculate the risk and go from there. In this case we’re talking about multiple insurance companies, one insurance tower.”

Even if the insurance companies represent the Angels, they could ultimately reduce the risk for the Skaggs family and their lawyers with a last-minute settlement.

Legal experts say that in cases where huge sums of money are at stake, the two sides can reach what’s known as a high-low settlement, with insurance companies promising to pay plaintiffs an agreed-upon sum even if the jury awards nothing. In exchange, the plaintiffs accepted an agreed-upon cap on their award — even if the jury thought they deserved more.

A nightmarish outcome for the Skaggs family would be if the jury awarded them nothing, meaning that in addition to widow Carli Skaggs and parents Debbie Hetman and Darrell Skaggs leaving empty-handed, their powerful legal team that spent thousands of hours on the case would go unpaid. Their contingency fees – typically 35% to 40% of the award – would be zero.

A high-low deal with the Angels would ensure that Skaggs’ lawyers get paid and the family gets money even if the jury denies them anything.

Both sides are scrambling to assess the risks before the jury returns its verdict. Another source of information for the Angels was a “shadow jury,” a half-dozen people hired by insurance companies to attend the trial and give feedback to the Angels’ lawyers on their reactions to the testimony.

Negotiations could then take place with little time to lose.

“Who will blink first? » said Panish. “The poses and maneuvers are finished. The hay is in the barn. The bricks have been laid. I would be very surprised if they aren’t talking already.”

A person familiar with behind-the-scenes negotiations between the two sides said an insurance company with a relatively low limit on its Angels coverage — near the bottom of the tower — has blocked progress toward a settlement. The insurance companies finally made a “modest offer” more than a month ago that was rejected by the Skaggs family.

“If a proposed settlement is within the limits of the insurance policy, there will be pressure on the defense to settle,” Panish said. “But if the amount exceeds the limits, say the coverage is $50 million and the claim is $100 million, insurance companies cannot force the angels to settle because they would have to pay the excess amount.”

The facts surrounding Skaggs’ death are not in dispute. An autopsy concluded the 27-year-old left-hander died accidentally of asphyxiation after inhaling his own vomit while under the influence of fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol on the night of July 1, 2019, while the Angels were in Texas for a three-game series against the Rangers.

Kay provided Skaggs with the counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl and is serving a 22-year sentence in federal prison for his role in the death.

The Skaggs family’s legal team, led by attorneys Rusty Hardin, Shaun Holley and Dutko, argued that several Angels employees knew of Kay’s opioid addiction for years and ignored team and Major League Baseball policies by failing to report or punish Kay.

Dutko said Kay was operating within the scope of his employment when he gave Skaggs and several other players opioid pills — a position Schuyler vigorously opposed. Dutko referenced testimony that Kay did everything he could to please players — getting them Viagra prescriptions and marijuana vape pens, booking tee times and massages, and pleasing them by knocking a fastball off his knee and eating pimples off the back of star outfielder Mike Trout.

“From Viagra to vape pens to opioids. Eric Kay’s professional responsibility was to get the players everything they wanted,” Dutko said.

Schuyler continually portrayed Skaggs as a conniving drug addict who pressured Kay to get him pills and distributed pills to his teammates, even pressuring Kay to deliver opioids to him shortly after the longtime employee and admitted drug addict was released from rehab.

On Monday, Schuyler reviewed testimony from five of Skaggs’ teammates dating back to 2011 and argued that not only did Skaggs’ drug use increase over a nine-year period, but that Skaggs introduced them to Kay and personally obtained pills for the players.

“It’s called the distribution chain,” Schuyler said.

The Skaggs family is seeking not only damages for lost income and emotional distress, but also punitive damages. California law does not allow punitive damages in wrongful death cases, but precedent dating back to the OJ Simpson case makes an exception if the person suffered property damage before their death. Skaggs’ lawyers believe Kay was responsible for the fentanyl contamination of the pitcher’s iPad, which was confiscated and never returned to the family.

“The jury must first find the defendant liable for damages caused by economic and emotional distress, and then a second deliberation will determine whether punitive damages are appropriate,” said Edson K. McClellan, an Irvine attorney who specializes in high-stakes civil and employment litigation. “The purpose of punitive damages is to send a message to the defendant: Don’t do it again.”

McClellan said the goal of closing statements is to “sway hearts,” to persuade jurors who might not have made up their minds. Both sides made impassioned arguments that the arguments they presented over two months validated a verdict in their favor.