Settlement reached in lawsuit over death of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs

A settlement was reached Friday in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by family members of Tyler Skaggs against the Los Angeles Angels in the opioid overdose death of the 27-year-old pitcher during a team road trip.

Details of the settlement, announced on the fourth day of jury deliberations, were not immediately available. The settlement brings an end to a two-month trial.

Attorneys for Skaggs’ family and the Angels delivered closing arguments early this week, handing the decision to jurors after about two months of hearing evidence connected to Skaggs’ death July 1, 2019 at age 27 in a Texas hotel room. A coroner’s report said Skaggs choked to death on his vomit and a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was found in his system.

A central figure in the trial was former public relations staffer Eric Kay and his struggles with drug addiction. Attorneys for the family claimed his habit of dispensing of pills to players on the team was the primary cause of Skaggs’ demise.

“We believe Tyler Skaggs should be alive today,” said attorney Daniel Dutko, who represents the parents and widow of Skaggs. “We wanted the truth to come out. The same cannot be said of the Angels.”

He accused team officials of gaslighting the jury and argued that even after repeated problems and drug rehab stints for Kay, the team ignored what he was doing. Dutko argued that team officials tried to make the case that they worked with Major League Baseball on Kay’s drug issues.

In the opening statement, the family said the team ignored obvious signs of on-the-job drug abuse by a staffer. Hetty Chang reports for the NBC4 News at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025.

“Major League Baseball never knew anything about Eric Kay,” the attorney said during his closing argument. “There is no evidence Major League Baseball was ever involved.”

Kay was convicted in federal court in Texas of providing Skaggs with a counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl and sentenced to 22 years in prison. His federal criminal trial in Texas included testimony from five MLB players who said they received oxycodone from Kay at various times from 2017 to 2019, the years he was accused of obtaining pills and giving them to Angels players.

The lawsuit filed by the late athlete’s widow and parents seeks $118 million in future earnings damages plus punitive damages.

The team’s attorneys said Skaggs struggled mightily with his own addiction to painkillers over the years and that his death was a result of his mixing alcohol and drugs. They argued the dose of fentanyl was not potent enough to kill the pitcher by itself. The drugs were more potent because Skaggs was snorting them instead of getting them processed by his liver when swallowing a pill, the team’s attorneys contended.

Any activity involving Skaggs and Kay happened on their own time and in the privacy of the player’s hotel room, the team argued.

The 27-year-old was found dead in his hotel room in Texas on July 1, 2019.

Angels President John Carpino was the final witness in the trial. Before him, Angels executive Molly Jolly, the team’s chief financial officer, testified in the team’s defense.

Carpino and Jolly said they were unaware of the substance-abuse issues of Skaggs or Kay. Carpino discussed how he was alerted to the news that Kay saw Skaggs snorting drugs in his hotel room while the team was on a road trip July 1, 2019, to play the Texas Rangers.

“I called counsel and asked how do we get a hold of authorities in Texas,” Carpino said.

Team officials met with federal prosecutors, the Drug Enforcement Agency and FBI, but “no charges were ever brought against the team,” he added. “We were never indicted or accused of any wrongdoing. It was strictly
pinned on Eric Kay.”

Carpino said that, in hindsight, he wished he knew of the problems the two were having with their addictions.

Carli Skaggs, the widow of Tyler Skaggs, provided emotional testimony in the civil trial’s sixth week when she talked about how the couple met. The couple, who married in 2018, had just bought a house together and were working with an architect to design a home where they could raise a family before she received a call from the team’s general manager the her husband was found unresponsive in the hotel room.

Carli Skaggs said they smoked marijuana together, but she was not aware of her husband’s other drug use.

The trial also included testimony from Camela Kay, ex-wife of Eric Kay, and Skaggs’ teammate Mike Trout, who said he loved Skaggs like a brother and never saw signs of drug use before his death.

Camela Kay said the Angels failed her then-husband, who worked lengthy hours. She said that during his 2019 hospitalization for a drug overdose, she heard he had pills intended for Skaggs.

After Skaggs’ death, the MLB reached a deal with the players association to start testing for opioids and to refer those who test positive to the treatment board.

Skaggs had been a regular in the Angels’ starting rotation since late 2016 and struggled with injuries repeatedly during that time. He previously played for the Arizona Diamondbacks.