SANTA ANA, Calif. — The ex-wife of former Los Angeles Angels communications worker Eric Kay testified Monday that the group was conscious of his drug abuse a number of instances earlier than Kay equipped the medication that killed Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs in 2019.
Camela Kay testified within the wrongful dying civil go well with that she witnessed cases the place crew staff distributed non-prescription medication to gamers, together with as soon as on a crew airplane the place she described opioid capsules being handed out. Her testimony was repeatedly interrupted with objections by crew attorneys.
Camela Kay’s testimony refuted that of the primary two witnesses of the trial — Eric Kay’s ex-boss Tim Mead, the previous director of communications, and Angels touring secretary Tom Taylor. Mead and Taylor each testified they weren’t conscious of Kay’s drug use and whether or not or not he was offering medication to gamers till after Skaggs’ unintended overdose dying in a Texas lodge room in 2019.
Eric Kay was convicted in 2022 of giving a fentanyl-laced capsule to Skaggs that led to his dying. He’s serving a 22-year federal jail sentence.
The Skaggs household is in search of $118 million and doable further damages, claiming the crew violated its personal guidelines requiring intervention, together with potential dismissal, of any worker identified to be abusing medication. The household asserts that permitting Kay to work together with Skaggs, when each had habit issues, set the situations for catastrophe.
Plaintiff’s legal professional Shawn Holley stated in her opening assertion final week that the Angels put Skaggs “straight in hurt’s means” by persevering with to make use of Eric Kay.
Camela Kay testified that, following an tried intervention on Oct. 1, 2017, when the couple was nonetheless married, Mead and Taylor got here to the Kay dwelling. She stated Mead returned the following day to examine on Kay. Throughout that point, she testified, Mead got here out of the Kay bed room holding “six or seven” baggies of about six white capsules every. Camela Kay used her fingers to indicate the scale of the baggies, about one inch by one inch.
“I used to be shocked,” she testified. “I questioned [Mead] and requested the place he bought these. He stated Eric directed him and informed him they had been in shoeboxes.”
She stated Mead then put them on a espresso desk in entrance of the place Eric Kay was sitting with Taylor.
In his earlier testimony, Mead stated he recalled “little or no of that morning” and didn’t recall asking Kay the place medication had been, whether or not he went into Kay’s bed room or discovered medication in baggies there. Angels attorneys stated in opening remarks that the crew was not liable for Skaggs’ dying, was not conscious of Skaggs’ illicit drug use or that Kay had offered medication to a number of gamers. The protection additionally argued that Skaggs had used medication earlier than his time with the Angels, when he was with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Angels legal professional Todd Theodora stated it was Skaggs who “determined to acquire the illicit capsules and take the illicit medication together with the alcohol the night time he died.”
Camela Kay testified she continued to have considerations about her ex-husband’s substance abuse and that she shared these considerations with Mead and Taylor.
She additionally stated she by no means noticed enchancment in Eric Kay, even after he was despatched to outpatient remedy following the failed 2017 intervention. Camela Kay testified — backed by textual content messages proven in court docket — that she had a number of conversations with Angels advantages supervisor Cecilia Schneider to get her husband into an outpatient rehabilitation program in 2017.
She additionally testified she had been on the Angels’ airplane previously and that she noticed conduct on the airplane that brought about her concern. When requested in regards to the conduct, she stated, “I had seen them passing out capsules and consuming alcohol.”
Requested plaintiff’s legal professional Leah Graham: “Whenever you say noticed them, who’s the them?”
“Gamers, clubbies,” Kay replied, indicating she believed she noticed Xanax and Percocet being handed out. She later stated she was avoided gamers on the airplane, “however you possibly can see what is going on on behind you” and when she would go to the toilet.
In 2013, Camela Kay stated, each Mead and Taylor had been current on the crew lodge after Eric Kay had a panic assault at Yankees Stadium in New York. It was there, Camela Kay stated, the place Eric Kay informed her he was taking 5 Vicodin per day. She testified each Taylor and Mead had been there and heard the admission.
Camela Kay’s testimony continues Monday afternoon with extra direct examination from Graham, adopted by cross-examination from the protection.