The family of Tyler Skaggs and the Angels remain locked in a contentious legal duel, with each side claiming the other is failing to comply with court orders surrounding a civil lawsuit set for trial in three months.

Much of the conflict surrounds cell phones, with the Angels trying to get content from Skaggs’ phone and the family seeking information from dozens of Angels employees and even team owner Arte Moreno.

Skaggs died after ingesting a lethal combination of fentanyl and alcohol in 2019, and the family of the former Angels pitcher filed a civil suit alleging the team knew, or should have known, enough to prevent his death. The Angels could be forced to pay damages in the hundreds of millions.

Former Angels communications staffer Eric Kay was convicted in federal court in 2022 of providing Skaggs with drugs.

The civil trial is scheduled to begin April 7 in Orange County Superior Court, despite the Angels’ recent request to have it delayed until late 2025. The two sides are set to meet with Judge H. Shaina Colover on Friday to provide updates on their trial preparation.

The family — Skaggs’ widow, Carli; his mother, Debbie Hetman; and his father, Darrell Skaggs — have asserted through their attorneys that the Angels’ attorneys are trying to “run out of the clock.” California law says that a civil case must be brought to trial within five years of filing or the case is dismissed. In this case, that deadline would be June 2026.

The current battles are mostly over evidence to be provided via discovery. Retired Judge Gail Andler has been appointed as the discovery referee.

The Angels’ attorneys assert that the plaintiffs have not complied with a 2023 court order to provide the contents of Tyler Skaggs’ cell phone. The family’s attorneys insist they have met their legal obligation, turning over everything except files redacted for privacy reasons.

On Nov. 20, Andler ruled in favor of the Angels, ordering that a report on the contents of the phone must be produced “without redaction, save for any sexually explicit photographs involving Plaintiffs or any third-party medical information.”

The Angels’ attorneys wrote in a court filing that the phone’s entire contents are central to their case. Their interest in the phone was apparently piqued after a Washington Post article, published in July, quoted Skaggs’ text messages related to his drug use from as far back as 2012.

“Angels Baseball expects that the Cell Phone will conclusively establish that Skaggs’s demise was the direct result of his own illegal, habitual snorting of street opioids,” read a document filed in November. “The Cell Phone will demonstrate conclusively that only one person is ultimately responsible for Skaggs’s death — Tyler Skaggs.”

The number of documents (texts, photos, etc.) from the phone that have been withheld so far is a matter of legal interpretation. In court documents, the Angels claim more than 28,000 files are missing, and the family asserts that the number is less than 700.

Further complicating the issue, the family has only a digital copy of the phone because the physical phone remains in the hands of federal prosecutors in Texas. An official appointed by the California courts to manage evidence from the phone has not been allowed access to the device in Texas.

The discovery issues raised by the family also focus on cell phones, specifically those of Angels employees.

The family has asked the Angels to collect cell phone data relevant to the case from employees whose phones are deemed to be used for work purposes.

Two recent court rulings focused specifically on devices belonging to Moreno, chairman Dennis Kuhl and traveling secretary Tom Taylor.

Angels attorneys searched the devices of Moreno and Kuhl and found nothing relevant, according to a court filing. They did produce documents from Taylor’s devices.

Andler ruled that wasn’t sufficient, so she ordered the attorneys to detail their process, “specifically which personal devices and/or personal accounts were searched, how those devices and/or accounts were searched, whether documents never existed or no longer exist, and what search terms were run.”

The fighting over discovery has led to a delay in depositions of witnesses by both sides. The family has asserted that the Angels have continually canceled depositions of Angels employees.

Each side has until March 7 to depose witnesses in advance of the trial. The list of witnesses the family seeks to depose includes Moreno, star center fielder Mike Trout and dozens of other current and former Angels employees. Trout is scheduled for a Jan. 15 deposition.

Amid all the legal wrangling, it is still possible the case will never make it to trial, if the sides agree to a settlement.

California is a proportional liability state, meaning the Angels could be forced to pay damages even if they are only judged to be partially liable for Skaggs’ death. If a jury, for example, finds the Angels to be responsible for 10% of the factors leading to Skaggs’ death, they would have to pay 10% of the damages.

The Angels maintain that no one in management had any knowledge of Skaggs’ drug use prior to his death, and that information on his cell phone would likely prove that he was actively hiding his drug use from the team.

The family asserts that the Angels did know, hanging much of their case on an April 2019 incident when Kay was hospitalized after a drug overdose. Tim Mead, who was Kay’s supervisor at that time, was at the hospital and allegedly was a part of conversations with Kay’s mother about the drug connection between Kay and Skaggs. Mead has denied such knowledge.

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