SANTA ANA (CNS) – Angels star center fielder Mike Trout is scheduled to testify Tuesday in the trial of the wrongful death civil lawsuit filed by the widow and parents of Tyler Skaggs against the Los Angeles Angels stemming from the pitcher’s fentanyl overdose.
On Monday, the team’s traveling secretary Tom Taylor testified that he was unaware that his longtime co-worker and friend Eric Kay had an illicit drug addiction problem or was peddling pills.
The 27-year-old pitcher was found dead in his hotel room July 1, 2019, while the team was in Texas on a road trip. Kay was convicted in federal court in Texas of providing a fatal dose of fentanyl causing death and is serving a 22-year prison term.
On July 18, 2019, Kay told a co-worker that he had been in the room with Skaggs the night before and that he saw him chopping up pills and snorting them, so the co-worker alerted Taylor, who called his bosses, he testified.
“I was immediately shocked,” Taylor testified. “I’m still shocked actually.”
Under questioning from Angels attorney Todd Theodora, Taylor said he never suspected Kay had a substance abuse problem or that he had been giving pills to Skaggs.
“It was like we need this escalated right now,” he said of what he did when he heard the news.
Taylor called Kay’s boss at the time, Tim Mead, who was in charge of team public relations.
“I felt he was going to give us the best advice on how to move forward,” Kay said.
Taylor said he lost his father at a young age so Mead has become a father figure to him over the years.
Taylor and Kay started working for the team together as interns about 30 years ago, he said.
Taylor testified about how he got rare time off for Easter, which was important to him and his family as a Catholic. So he was on his way home to celebrate the holiday when he saw Kay did not look well, he said.
Kay told him he had the flu so Taylor offered to give him a ride home, but Kay would only agree to let Taylor follow him home to make sure he got there OK.
Taylor parted ways with Kay near his home as Kay stopped at a drug store, but something made Taylor circle back to check on his friend, he said. When he got back to the drug store he saw Kay doing “karate chops” and acting bizarrely, so he convinced Kay to get in his car and drove him home, he said.
Kay’s wife showed him a bottle of Advil with a few pills in it but he didn’t take that as anything out of the ordinary, he said. Taylor testified that he took Kay “at his word” that when he had rare off days it was because of a mix-up with his medication for depression.
Taylor said Kay was a good and hard worker 99% of the time, but had off days.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys are trying to make the case that Kay would show up to work high on opioids and that officials such as Mead ignored team policies and rules to cover for a valued employee.
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