Tyler Skaggs’ family sues Angels over pitcher’s death

Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs leaves the field during a pitching change against the Toronto Blue Jays on June 18, 2019, in Toronto. “The Angels Organization strongly disagrees with the claims made by the Skaggs family and we will vigorously defend these lawsuits in court.” In a separate statement, Mead’s attorney, Eric Vandevelde, said his client “was not aware, informed or had any knowledge whatsoever that Tyler may have used opioids or that Eric Kay or any Angels employee had ever provided opioids to any player. The Angels hired former federal prosecutor Ariel Neuman to conduct an internal investigation of the circumstances surrounding Skaggs’ death and have repeatedly denied that anyone in the team’s management knew about “any employee providing opioids to any player.” In October 2019, Kay’s Newport Beach-based attorney, Michael Molfetta, called attempts to blame Kay for the death “shortsighted and misguided.” “When all the facts come out,” Molfetta said, “I think what happened is a tragedy.. “The Angels did not fire Kay, did not remove Kay from the clubhouse, and did not properly restrict Kay’s access to players such as Tyler,” the lawsuit filed in L.A. said. The lawsuits accuse Mead of being “negligent in numerous ways,” among them having “a duty to stop Kay’s interaction with players once he learned or should have learned that Kay was providing dangerous illegal drugs to players, including Tyler.” Kay was in rehab “multiple times while employed by the Angels,” the lawsuits said, and was hospitalized in 2019 “because he overdosed on illegal drugs.” Rusty Hardin, the Houston-based attorney for the Skaggs family, said in a statement that the decision to file the lawsuits was “very difficult.” “But they want to get to the bottom of the circumstances surrounding Tyler’s tragic, untimely and completely avoidable death, and to hold the individuals and entities — including the Angels — accountable for the actions that contributed to it,” Hardin said.