DP&S’s Lara Hollingsworth Secures Pivotal Ruling Shutting Down Angels’ Defense in Tyler Skaggs Wrongful Death Civil Trial

Durham, Pittard & Spalding has joined forces with trial lawyers from Rusty Hardin & Associates and Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir LLP in representing the family of Tyler Skaggs, a former MLB starting pitcher and rising star, in a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Angels, over the Major League Baseball team’s responsibility for the 2019 death of Tyler Skaggs. In what has been described as a “massive win” by national media outlets, Orange County, California Superior Court Judge H. Shaina Colover granted the Plaintiffs’ pretrial motion, closing the door on one of the Angels’ key defense strategies.

Durham, Pittard & Spalding partner Lara Hollingsworth led the charge in obtaining this key pre-trial ruling. The Angels had hoped to re-litigate issues decided in the criminal trial of the Angels’ former Communications Director, Eric Kay. Jurors in the federal criminal trial found that Kay distributed fentanyl to Skaggs, and this resulted in his death. The judge’s ruling means the Angels cannot dispute these facts in the trial. Kay is serving a 22-year sentence in federal prison.

Hollingsworth described the work that resulted in the ruling as among the most significant of her career. “It’s a big victory for us and one we have spent years fighting for,” she said. “We immediately identified the issue after Kay was convicted, and we then spent the last several years laying the groundwork and gathering evidence to support it. It was a long time coming, and we’re super happy about it.”  Jury selection begins October 6, 2025.

Writes The Athletic’s Sam Blum:

Angels attorneys had built the team’s defense around re-litigating the criminal case against their former communications director Eric Kay, who is in federal prison for providing the fentanyl-laced pill that killed Skaggs in 2019.

But Judge H. Shaina Colover sided with lawyers for the Skaggs family, who argued successfully in a motion that Kay’s criminal conviction and its findings should stand as fact when a jury is seated in the coming weeks.

Skaggs attorney Lara Hollingsworth argued that Kay had been given every opportunity to litigate his case during his 2022 criminal trial and in a subsequent appeal, which was denied. She pushed back on the idea that the Angels had not been involved in the criminal trial, noting copious communications between an Angels lawyer and Kay’s criminal defense lawyers as the trial played out.

Hollingsworth argued that the alleged evidence that the Angels wanted to present related to topics that had already been decided, beyond a reasonable doubt, in Kay’s conviction.

“The fact that they want to do it again, and (argue the case) differently with a bigger bank account,” Hollingsworth said, “that’s not how justice works.”