The Dirty Verdict · 2026-06-13 · 1h 7m
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
49 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
The Dirty Verdict panel discusses the Tyler Skaggs case, a wrongful death lawsuit arising from the 2019 death of the Los Angeles Angels pitcher who ingested fentanyl-laced pills provided by team communications director Eric Kay. The episode features trial attorneys Laura Hollingsworth, Dana Levy (Durham, Pittard & Spalding), Leah Graham (Sorrels Law Firm), and Daniel Dudko (Kirker Garcia Law Firm), all of whom served as prosecutors in the Ken Paxton impeachment trial. The panel walks through the facts: Skaggs, drafted at 18 in 2009, obtained what he believed was oxycontin from Kay but received 100% fentanyl; Kay was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 22 years in federal prison in Fort Worth. The case revealed systemic negligence - Kay distributed opioids to at least seven players, team doctor Craig Milhouse dispensed 650+ opioid pills to Kay between 2009-2012 without legitimate medical justification, and Angels management allegedly knew of the distribution network. The plaintiffs overcame significant liability hurdles by proving the Angels' negligent training, supervision, and hiring, establishing foreseeability that a player could die from ingesting fentanyl through Kay's drug distribution operation. The discussion emphasizes how this was poisoning, not overdose, since Skaggs had never encountered fentanyl and the pill was disguised as legitimate prescription medication.
Skaggs, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels drafted in 2009, died in June 2019 when he ingested a pill he believed was oxycontin from team communications director Eric Kay, but it was actually 100% fentanyl. Kay was a long-time drug addict who distributed opioids to players including Skaggs, and was later convicted and sentenced to 22 years in federal prison.
Eric Kay distributed opioids to at least seven Angels players, though the attorneys believe there were likely more. This was uncovered through the criminal investigation and prosecution that preceded the civil case, with testimony from multiple players during Kay's federal trial in Fort Worth.
Between 2009 and 2012, team doctor Craig Milhouse prescribed Kay approximately 650 opioid pills at a rate of five or six per day, despite Kay having no legitimate medical issues. The evidence suggested Milhouse either got Kay addicted or fostered his existing addiction, establishing systemic corruption within the Angels organization.
During his criminal case, Eric Kay told the DEA that Tim Mead, his supervisor and sixth in the chain of command at the Angels, knew about the opioid distribution two years before Skaggs died. Kay mentioned this in recorded phone calls and later offered to flip his story if the Angels would help him, though this did not aid his sentencing.
Skaggs had never taken fentanyl before, had no text messages about it, and was unaware fentanyl was a problem - he believed he was taking oxycontin. The pill containing 100% fentanyl was disguised to look identical to legitimate blue oxycontin 30mg tablets, making it poisoning rather than a voluntary overdose.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
There are genuine practitioner-level insights scattered throughout - third-party subpoena strategy when defendants stonewalled, discovery referee mechanics, the insurance tower revelation, expert cross-examination using the expert's own textbook, and the jury question as a settlement catalyst - but roughly half the episode is pool-party banter, spray-tan jokes, baseball trivia, and unrelated tangents that dilute the signal heavily.
we sent out, I don't over 50 third party subpoenas for cell phones to self. For cell phones
Dana at 3 o' clock in the morning found the textbook that this toxicologist used in medical school that directly contradicted all of his opinions
The episode offers some fresh practitioner-level tactics - building a case almost entirely through third-party discovery when the primary defendant stonewalls, using an expert's own graduate textbook to destroy their trial opinion, and leveraging a jury question as the decisive settlement lever - but the discussion stays in case-narration mode and never rises to contrarian or first-principles legal thinking.
they took the position that even though they paid their employees to use their cell phones, had a specific writ policy that allowed it, that they were not required to produce anything off their cell phones
I went and found the textbook and something that their experts had relied on
The four guests are genuine practitioners who spent years litigating a complex, high-profile wrongful-death case through a 3.5-month trial in California state court, including a parallel criminal proceeding - real operators who did the thing at scale, not thought-leaders - though none are prominent beyond their regional trial bar.
we were four of a much larger trial team
September 21st, we all flew home... December 17th, 19th
The episode is genuinely data-rich for a podcast of this type: specific pill counts, sentencing figures, trial duration, motion-to-compel counts, closing demand figures, named individuals at every level of the Angels organization, and precise timelines; the main gap is the withheld settlement amount, but that is legitimately privileged.
he gave Eric K650 opioid pills
50 motion to compel hearings
The hosts ask some functional follow-up questions (discovery referee costs, chain of command, California wrongful-death law, who negotiated settlement) but repeatedly allow extended comedy tangents - pool parties, spray tans, Keebler elves - to swamp the substance, miss obvious deeper probes, and never push the guests on any contested legal or factual point.
Did anyone have any great stories? Did y' all have witnesses you were assigned to that did crossed or
Was there any med mouse stuff in California that kicked in shoes?
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
In this episode of The Dirty Verdict , Peter Taaffe, Bill Ogden, and Kyle Herbert sit down with Laura Hollingsworth, Dana Levy, Leah Graham, and Daniel Dutko for a deep dive into the civil case surrounding the tragic death of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs. The panel breaks down the facts behind the case, the role of Angels communications director Eric Kay, the evidence that revealed a broader culture of drug access inside the organization, and the uphill battle of proving negligence against a Major League Baseball franchise. From third-party subpoenas and deleted text messages to emotional witness testimony and a jury question that changed the trajectory of the case, the guests walk through what it took to fight for accountability on behalf of Tyler's family. The conversation also touches on the Ken Paxton impeachment trial, the unique dynamics of a massive trial team, the personal responsibility defense, fentanyl in professional sports, and whether Major League Baseball has done enough to address the systemic issues exposed by the case.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Peter Taft: All right, welcome back to another edition of the Dirty Verdict podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Peter Taft, joined as always by Bill Ogden.
Bill Ogden: Thanks, Pete, for making me first.
Peter Taft: You got it. And my junior associate here, and junior associate, Kyle Herbert.
Kyle Herbert: I'm glad to be invited.
Peter Taft: Thank you, Kyle. Um, okay, this is going to be a challenge called, um, do not speak until the other person's finished speaking.
Kyle Herbert: Wait, what are you talking about?
Peter Taft: Yeah, It's just a challenge. I'm not saying it's going to happen. Um, we'll see. Is Yvette a teacher?
Bill Ogden: She was. She's retired now.
Peter Taft: Yeah, My mom, Yvette, she should have brought her. Brought her in for this one. She'd been good.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, I think actually, based on our pre convo, I think she's been like, not. Okay, well, I mean, where, where we started with who we're friends with versus where the. Some of the.
Kyle Herbert: So we've already been talking for like 30 minutes off air and this might be the first podcast where maybe Bill and I just don't talk.
Bill Ogden: I don't know if I'm.
Kyle Herbert: We'll just see how, how long we can go without speaking.
Bill Ogden: Challenge accepted.
Kyle Herbert: Quiet game. Ready, set, go.
Peter Taft: Okay. All right, We've got an all star, uh, panel of guests today. Our largest panel ever, I think. Yeah, we had Dan, Rusty and Erica. That was three, so now we have four. Congratulations. Record setting event. So, um, we're joined. I'll start over. Across from me, Laura Hollingsworth. And now and. And then I'll just say. And Dana Levy. Levy. And you guys are at the same firm, which is. There's several names.
Dana Levy: Durham, Pittard and Spalding.
Peter Taft: Got it. Okay.
Bill Ogden: I always said Pitard. I don't know why. I just like saying this.
Dana Levy: It's more medieval.
Bill Ogden: That last, the last part just kind of riled me up a little bit.
Peter Taft: And do y'.
Leah Graham: All.
Peter Taft: Is your firm. I mean, I know you do a lot of appeal work, but also trial as well and everything. Got it.
Bill Ogden: They, they. We've worked with them. They're fantastic.
Peter Taft: Excellent. And I think our prior guest, Trey Barton, said he's working with you all on an appeal as well.
Kyle Herbert: And to be fair, the idea for this originated from me having cocktails with Mr. Pittard at like 9am in Las Vegas because we were invited to a party.
Peter Taft: Was that the end of the night or is that the beginning of the day?
Kyle Herbert: I'm not going to answer that, but I'm going to say we were both invited to a party and then we were asked not to Go into the party.
Laura Hollingsworth: Is this the pool party?
Kyle Herbert: Yes.
Bill Ogden: Was your shirt off?
Kyle Herbert: They decided me and Mr. Pitter could not.
Dana Levy: Weren't dressed appropriately.
Kyle Herbert: We couldn't glow through the daylight, uh, at the pool party with our clothes off. And so they. So Pittard said. I said, I don't know. I'll go take a nap. And he's like, no, let's go get some cocktails.
Bill Ogden: I told you to get a full service.
Kyle Herbert: That's right, A full service.
Bill Ogden: I told you to get a spray tan.
Kyle Herbert: I know, right?
Bill Ogden: Should have got one.
Kyle Herbert: They ran out of, uh, enough spray.
Peter Taft: Okay. Also joined by Leah Graham.
Leah Graham: Yes.
Peter Taft: Of now the Sorrels law firm.
Laura Hollingsworth: Correct.
Kyle Herbert: Great.
Peter Taft: How long have you been with Randy's firm?
Laura Hollingsworth: Two ish months. A little over two months.
Peter Taft: Excellent.
Kyle Herbert: Okay.
Dana Levy: Huh.
Peter Taft: Very good. And Daniel Ditko, duo Dudco. Sorry. Daniel Dudko now best lawyer in Texas with the Kirker Garcia law firm. As of. How long ago is that?
Daniel Dudko: Uh, two months ago.
Peter Taft: Excellent. Okay, well, very good.
Kyle Herbert: And real quick, so two of you guys are in Houston, and two are. You guys are all foreign. All right.
Peter Taft: Yeah. Did Bill. Did you and Daniel go to school?
Bill Ogden: We did not go to school together. He taught me everything I know.
Kyle Herbert: Okay.
Bill Ogden: I looked up to. To Mr. Duco. I was gonna say more than anyone, but Mike Seeley and Sarah Sealy, they were the only others on that level.
Peter Taft: Yeah. He's given you some shout outs.
Bill Ogden: He coached. Coached me in mock trial.
Peter Taft: Yeah.
Dana Levy: Not just.
Bill Ogden: I still remember stories, too. You Pizza Hut. I remember everything.
Kyle Herbert: Duke, we have some complaints to lie. Okay, we'll get to that after you
Peter Taft: say something about Pizza, uh, Hut.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, I think he used to own one.
Daniel Dudko: I owned a Domino's Pizza. Yes.
Bill Ogden: Same thing.
Peter Taft: We learned a fun fact today is if you buy your client all new clothes and they work at a pizza shop, make sure they don't for trial, clothes for trial. Make sure they don't wear their clothes to the pizza place and then come to trial. They'll ruin them.
Bill Ogden: The rules you don't know you need.
Kyle Herbert: They don't get that in law school.
Peter Taft: No, they don't now. But if you watch the Dirty work podcast, you'll never make that mistake again.
Kyle Herbert: So we want to dive right into this amazing case these lawyers handled. Or, like, want a little background?
Peter Taft: I was gonna do. Yeah, do a little background. One thing we learned in our little prep is that was everyone involved in the Ken Paxton impeachment case.
Leah Graham: Everyone but me.
Peter Taft: Okay, good.
Bill Ogden: Well, we would have won.
Laura Hollingsworth: Exactly.
Bill Ogden: We were.
Laura Hollingsworth: I knew I liked you.
Peter Taft: We Were. We were impeachment. Boyers.
Bill Ogden: Um, don't call us voyeur. Speed.
Daniel Dudko: That is the worst word.
Kyle Herbert: Today is the day of the primary. We should check and see if he's going to be our next.
Peter Taft: We won't know until later.
Bill Ogden: You got to check on Briscoe Kane.
Peter Taft: Lots of things.
Laura Hollingsworth: So can I tell you. Can I tell you about the friendship that was formed between Daniel and Briscoe Kane? Every day, Briscoe would show Daniel his gun. Every day.
Bill Ogden: Oh, because he passed the law that you could carry it on the household. Yeah, and he did carry it.
Daniel Dudko: And he let me touch it.
Bill Ogden: I went to high school. Yeah, we went to high school and law school.
Laura Hollingsworth: He's a great guy.
Daniel Dudko: He's, uh, a very nice person for his political leanings, which I don't agree with at all.
Bill Ogden: Same with Briscoe. We, policy wise, could not disagree more. But he is intelligent enough to explain why he thinks that the way he does. And I know that that's never going to change. And so we have great back and forth, but I can't let Kyle talk to Briscoe because Kyle's already been banned or blocked from every social media aspect.
Kyle Herbert: I don't understand about Briscoe is he clearly just wants to go back in that tree and make fudge cookies, and
Peter Taft: I don't even know what that means.
Bill Ogden: It means he's talking. He's calling him a Keebler elf.
Dana Levy: Uh, he also knows him really well.
Peter Taft: I mean, well, he's.
Bill Ogden: Could be.
Peter Taft: Is he running for Congress?
Bill Ogden: Yeah, he's running for this. For the new district that they drew under the fair new non gerrymandered maps.
Kyle Herbert: Well, I'm just glad we defeated racism.
Peter Taft: Um, okay, so, um. Yeah, so y' all were on the. You guys were on the prosecution side of the prosecutors.
Laura Hollingsworth: We never get to call ourselves that again, most likely. So.
Peter Taft: Yeah.
Kyle Herbert: How did you guys get roped into that?
Laura Hollingsworth: Rusty.
Peter Taft: Cuz they were. They.
Dana Levy: Yeah.
Peter Taft: Uh, yeah, y' all were.
Bill Ogden: None of you could say no. Not one of y' all said no.
Daniel Dudko: Try five times.
Dana Levy: I didn't want to. I was 100% from none of y'.
Leah Graham: All.
Laura Hollingsworth: Bill.
Bill Ogden: By. By the hour. What you say? 900, 500 flat fee.
Kyle Herbert: Wow.
Daniel Dudko: Oh, man.
Bill Ogden: How do you guys feel about call me to negotiate your next deal on an impeachment hearing at the end of it?
Kyle Herbert: Feel good about having drawn the ire of someone who will be a sitting senator?
Laura Hollingsworth: More than likely, I'm okay with it.
Peter Taft: Okay.
Laura Hollingsworth: Let's stand by what we did.
Bill Ogden: You couldn't have done anything else.
Dana Levy: We did the right thing. And I would have did. Uh, Even knowing the result, I would do the same thing again. No question about it.
Peter Taft: Do you all of y' all have a prosecutorial background? Anyone?
Leah Graham: None of us.
Bill Ogden: Did any of y' all get badges?
Leah Graham: We did.
Bill Ogden: They asked for them back. Yeah, for sure. I'm keeping that for the rest of my life. When I get pulled over, I'm like, oh, sorry there.
Kyle Herbert: I'd be like, hey, take it. That's lame. You took. You stole your.
Peter Taft: You kept yours.
Bill Ogden: Allegedly.
Dana Levy: Uh, yeah.
Laura Hollingsworth: This is great.
Kyle Herbert: I'm sorry, Peter. Let's get back on track.
Peter Taft: Back on track. So you guys are in the impeachment. We've covered that at length. Did anyone have any great stories? Did y' all have witnesses you were assigned to that did crossed or. We watched a lot of it, but I. I can't say I watched.
Bill Ogden: I think I watched every second, really.
Laura Hollingsworth: I think Laura was the primary architect with Ross Garber of the impeachment rules and how different impeachments throughout history have worked and really, like, narrowing down. Here's how procedurally things should go. Um, Daniel, I think, had a great cross that had a lot of publicity with, um.
Dana Levy: Um.
Daniel Dudko: The HR guy.
Laura Hollingsworth: No, the judge of the business.
Daniel Dudko: Oh, what's his name?
Laura Hollingsworth: I literally just escaped my mind.
Dana Levy: Oh, man.
Kyle Herbert: So, yeah, we're gonna heavily.
Daniel Dudko: Oh, Dorfman.
Peter Taft: That's right. What was Grant Dorfman's role?
Laura Hollingsworth: Uh, he was working for the attorney general at the time, and so he was a theft.
Bill Ogden: Was he one of the ones that flipped or.
Leah Graham: No, no.
Bill Ogden: Sign the letter or he's a n. No, no, no. He was a true believer.
Dana Levy: He's a lieutenant of.
Bill Ogden: Of fiction.
Dana Levy: But.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Daniel Dudko: Well, yeah, I think we.
Kyle Herbert: Orphan heard the first TRO I ever argued 23 years ago. That's. He was wearing an Astros cap. He was on his way to a game, and I was like, this will only take a minute, Joe.
Daniel Dudko: So you were at the old courthouse.
Kyle Herbert: Yeah.
Daniel Dudko: With the holes in the walls and everything.
Peter Taft: Yeah.
Kyle Herbert: With the, uh, robot dehumidifier.
Daniel Dudko: Right.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Kyle Herbert: It was super fun.
Bill Ogden: You guys sound old.
Kyle Herbert: We were old.
Peter Taft: Okay. But, yeah, the. The. The case that kind of brought us together is the T. Tyler Skaggs case, and he was a pitcher for the Anaheim. I always say California Angels, because I'm.
Laura Hollingsworth: I think it was Angels of Anaheim.
Peter Taft: Yeah.
Laura Hollingsworth: That they rebranded into Angels baseball.
Peter Taft: That. Okay. Which, ironically, didn't. Wasn't there a plaintiff's lawyer that owned them for a while? I thought so. Maybe that Was.
Bill Ogden: I think you're thinking of the. Of the LA basketball team and the racist.
Peter Taft: Oh, that guy. Yeah. I'll look it up while m talking. But in any event, Tyler Skaggs was a pitcher.
Kyle Herbert: He owned Golden State.
Bill Ogden: No, he owned the. He owned the. Not the Lakers.
Peter Taft: The, uh, Donald something. He was a.
Kyle Herbert: And that's how. Ballmer.
Bill Ogden: That's what I was thinking of. Yes.
Daniel Dudko: I think the Angels are owned by Roy the Cowboy, what's his name. And then the Disney.
Peter Taft: Yeah. And then Gene Autry, maybe.
Kyle Herbert: Yeah, I'll look.
Peter Taft: Because I was pretty sure there was a plaintiff's lawyer that owned him at some point. Anyhow, now they're called the Angels.
Laura Hollingsworth: Angels baseball is how they'd like to be rebranded.
Peter Taft: Okay. They play at a park in Anaheim.
Laura Hollingsworth: Correct. They're the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Peter Taft: Okay.
Kyle Herbert: And we've all seen Angels in the outfield, which is an excellent film.
Daniel Dudko: Is this.
Dana Levy: They are not.
Kyle Herbert: Yeah, there is a tomato.
Peter Taft: Tomato, yeah.
Daniel Dudko: Uh, are you thinking of the one where the guy has his arm broken?
Laura Hollingsworth: No, that's a different.
Bill Ogden: That's Rookie of the year. But he's thinking of the one, I think, with. Was it something Glover?
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah, Donald Glover.
Kyle Herbert: I think it's a Spike Lee.
Bill Ogden: Donald or Tony? I think it's Tony. Donald's dad.
Kyle Herbert: I have no idea.
Peter Taft: Too. While y' all are talking rap.
Bill Ogden: Okay, childish. Can't be anything.
Peter Taft: So on a serious matter. So Tyler Skaggs was a pitcher for the Angels. He passed away under. Sad story. Under sad circumstances. So whichever one of y' all wants to take the. The. The factual allegations and we can start from there.
Bill Ogden: I love how they all.
Laura Hollingsworth: We already knew.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, everyone's awesome. Everyone's looking at Leah.
Laura Hollingsworth: All right, so Tyler Skaggs was a starting pitcher for the Angels. He was drafted in 2009, straight out of high school, age of 18. He had a. What everyone will tell you was a nasty curveball. Uh, he played for the Angels for a couple of years, got traded to the Diamondbacks, came back to the Angels around 2014 when he was connected with the Angels communications director, Eric Kay. Eric K. Was, uh, a long term drug addict, addicted, um, to.
Bill Ogden: What was his position?
Laura Hollingsworth: Communications director. So he was the guy whose job it was to make sure that the players after games would talk to the media, would show up for meet and greets, show up to hospital visits. It was his job to get the players to talk when they didn't want to. And he helped his job. He got the players to show up to these events in a variety of ways. Um, he was the butt of most of the jokes. He was sort of the locker room clown. He would do a number of, uh, mildly to extremely disgusting things for money, to entertain the locker room and as Mike Trout put it, to keep things light.
Bill Ogden: Sounds like a glue guy. That's what we call Peter.
Laura Hollingsworth: A glue guy. Yeah, Ish.
Bill Ogden: Maybe he's the glue that keeps the team together.
Kyle Herbert: We've never called Peter that.
Laura Hollingsworth: I think Peter would probably resent the comparison if he knew more of the facts.
Bill Ogden: No doubt.
Laura Hollingsworth: Uh, but in addition to, um, keeping the locker room loose, keeping it light, Eric was the guy who could get you weed, he could get you Viagra, he could get you opioids.
Bill Ogden: Now, now switching to also Peter.
Daniel Dudko: Well, that's smart.
Peter Taft: Yeah, that may be true.
Bill Ogden: He's our Austin plug.
Dana Levy: Yeah, maybe his name was the one redacted. Peter.
Kyle Herbert: Literally the worst drug dealer ever.
Bill Ogden: He doesn't even charge you.
Peter Taft: I report you.
Laura Hollingsworth: Okay, so, okay, so in 2019, uh, late June, the Angels are traveling to Texas to play against the Rangers. And then the Astros.
Kyle Herbert: Ask a question. Where was this young man from? Where did he go to high school?
Laura Hollingsworth: Tyler. Tyler was from Santa Monica High School. Um, born and raised in.
Kyle Herbert: California guy.
Laura Hollingsworth: California guy.
Dana Levy: His mom was the softball coach at San Monica High School.
Peter Taft: Mhm.
Kyle Herbert: Got it.
Dana Levy: Doesn't place.
Laura Hollingsworth: And so late June 2019, the team travels to Texas to play a series against the Rangers. And then the Astros one night in the hotel room. As soon as they get there, Tyler goes to Eric's room to obtain what he believes is an opioid. It ends up being laced with fentanyl. He ends up dying almost immediately. Criminal investigation ensues. Eric K. Is ultimately convicted for Tyler's death. He's currently serving 22 years of prison. Colorado. Excuse me? Um, shortly after.
Daniel Dudko: Colorado.
Kyle Herbert: Is that where he bought the customer?
Laura Hollingsworth: No, it's just federal prison. That's where he ended up.
Bill Ogden: Oh, yeah, they just signed.
Dana Levy: He liked to be in California. He just. It's.
Laura Hollingsworth: That's where he ended.
Kyle Herbert: I didn't realize it was a federal offense.
Laura Hollingsworth: And then we sued the Angels, uh, on behalf of Tyler and his family, asserting claims wrongful death, but negligent training, supervision, um, and hiring based on what we proved was it was known that Eric Kay was not only addicted to drones, but distributing to. Tyler was one of at least seven other players who. Evidence came out that he was Eric was distributing to. And we believe there's probably more than that, but. So our difficulty in the case was having to prove to a jury that, um, not only did the Angels know what was going on? Um, that, um, it was foreseeable that a player would ingest fentanyl and die from that, but that it was an error in the course of Eric's job description to, uh, provide the pills. And then we had to get over the personal responsibility aspects of. He took the pill. He was grown.
Kyle Herbert: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: He was buying drugs.
Laura Hollingsworth: Right. And we were able to do that.
Kyle Herbert: Was he buying drugs, or were they gratis?
Laura Hollingsworth: He was buying.
Kyle Herbert: Okay.
Bill Ogden: Kyle's always looking for a job that has free drugs.
Daniel Dudko: He was buying in the sense that he would pay a little bit more so that Eric could supply his own habit. And so he was buying only in the sense that he didn't need to pay for it, but Eric needed the money.
Bill Ogden: I assume Tyler wasn't the only one on the team doing this.
Laura Hollingsworth: Absolutely not.
Daniel Dudko: 7.
Bill Ogden: I was going to ask, how did y' all figure out this?
Laura Hollingsworth: So the criminal investigation and prosecution uncovered a number of people that testified during an Eric case. Criminal trial.
Kyle Herbert: So, um, where was the criminal trial?
Dana Levy: There were.
Laura Hollingsworth: Fort Worth. Yeah.
Dana Levy: And in the Northern District. The federal, uh. In the federal system.
Kyle Herbert: Okay.
Bill Ogden: A tough spot to be in.
Kyle Herbert: I don't like going to Fort Worth, let alone filing a case.
Dana Levy: Now.
Bill Ogden: Stockyards are okay.
Dana Levy: Jury came back in an hour and a half. Found guilty after eight days in draw.
Bill Ogden: 22 years.
Laura Hollingsworth: That's a two years above, uh, the minimum, like, the mandatory.
Bill Ogden: And there's no parole in federal court.
Daniel Dudko: It didn't help that the night before punishment, he was on the phone with his family, talking about what a piece of the family is.
Bill Ogden: Uh, the Skags family.
Leah Graham: Correct.
Bill Ogden: Multiple that came in during punishment.
Daniel Dudko: The prosecutors played it.
Kyle Herbert: I don't know if you know this. They record all those conversations.
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah, he did not know that. And he had multiple conversations where not only did he say.
Kyle Herbert: Well, his lawyer didn't say, by the way, the giant sign.
Daniel Dudko: I was talking to his mother.
Dana Levy: He knew it.
Kyle Herbert: He just didn't care.
Dana Levy: Didn't care.
Kyle Herbert: Yeah.
Dana Levy: His lawyers advised him. He knew that he shouldn't have been doing it, and he did it anyway.
Laura Hollingsworth: And in the course of the prosecution, at one point, Eric Kay had talked to the DEA and said, look, my. My supervisor, Tim Mead of the Angels, the sixth person in the chain of command, he knew about this. I told him two years before Tyler died that this was going on. He. Eric, told the DEA this. It got, uh, leaked to the press. And in one of these recordings, Eric said, look, I'll go back, tell the Angels lawyers, I'll flip my Story. I'll change whatever you need if you can get them to help me get out of this. None of that helped him on why are people.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, I could see that being not good on sentencing.
Laura Hollingsworth: Right.
Peter Taft: Okay, so one question. So this is a, uh, kind of a near and dear to, uh, me and my family. So it was a, uh. He thought. Tyler thought it was a standard opioid.
Daniel Dudko: It looked exactly like a blue opioid. 30. Like a blue oxycontin. Uh, it looked identical.
Bill Ogden: Like, allegedly. I don't know.
Daniel Dudko: We put him up on trial. You could not tell the difference.
Laura Hollingsworth: And this is before the fill. The fentanyl explosion. So, like, the whole idea of fentanyl wasn't really.
Peter Taft: Cause that's what you. You hear. It was an overdose on fentanyl. It wasn't an intentional overdose. He was intending to take a normally, uh, prescription level.
Daniel Dudko: The evidence came out that he had never taken fentanyl before, never heard of fentanyl. There's no text messages. We had his entire phone. He didn't really even know that fentanyl was a problem. And this pill contained 100% fentanyl.
Dana Levy: Now the feds are changing your house, the hundred percent. They're. They're changing it. They talk about it. Poisoning. Yes, because that, uh. To Danish.
Kyle Herbert: It's not an overdose.
Dana Levy: It's not an overdose. These players are asking for oxy. Right. If you talk to all of the players that were soliciting this from Eric, they'll tell you. We were getting oxy, and they had taken oxy, and they knew the effect it had on. They knew what they could take, and they knew why they were taking it.
Bill Ogden: Where's the team doctor?
Laura Hollingsworth: Oh, that's a great question. Doc Milhouse. Doc Milhouse, um, was actually the person that we discovered most likely got Eric addicted or at least help, um, foster his addiction in the early years. So between. You cross him. So between, like, 2009, 2012, he gave
Daniel Dudko: Eric K650 opioid pills.
Kyle Herbert: Well, how.
Daniel Dudko: How over what, Gary? 10, 2009, 2012, at some point, he gave him, um. Uh, there was like, five a day.
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah, it ended up five or six a day.
Dana Levy: Three months, it was like three, 300.
Daniel Dudko: Eric K. Had no medical issues? No, no, no issues.
Bill Ogden: Oh, he was writing the script for Eric, not for the players.
Laura Hollingsworth: Right, right.
Bill Ogden: Correct. Oh, yeah.
Kyle Herbert: So how did Milhouse find time to work for the A's and Michael Jackson?
Daniel Dudko: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the. The system within the Angels organization was corrupt from the bottom to the top.
Bill Ogden: Wait, did you cross that doctor?
Daniel Dudko: Yes.
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: And so the jury heard it. So does he still have a license?
Daniel Dudko: He's still a team doctor.
Laura Hollingsworth: How, uh, addictive they were.
Daniel Dudko: So let me tell you a story about when team.
Peter Taft: When.
Daniel Dudko: So Craig Milhouse shows up to be to. To first cross exam.
Kyle Herbert: Excuse me, Dr. Milhouse.
Bill Ogden: Dr. Milhouse for now.
Kyle Herbert: But he didn't go to soft drink medical school to not be called.
Bill Ogden: No, he went to Puerto Rico.
Daniel Dudko: He showed up.
Laura Hollingsworth: He's legit, though. He was the doctor for the Ducks. The Anon Ducks, the hockey team. He was the doctor of junior.
Daniel Dudko: He showed up for his testimony, and the lawyer met him in the hall and he had his tie was askew, his hair was all up. And the lawyer said, you look like shit. Go home. And the lawyer goes in there and says, he's not testifying today. I mean, that's. That's the team doctor to this day.
Dana Levy: And then during cross right, the team doctor is. Is Daniel's talking to him about the 650 pills.
Leah Graham: It.
Dana Levy: He could not and would not admit that he was aware that that was too many or that was addictive. Like, it was mind blowing.
Bill Ogden: I got asked, uh, should I go
Kyle Herbert: to medical school at Ohio State or Baylor? Does Baylor have a medical school?
Bill Ogden: No wonder Ohtani was gambling.
Peter Taft: Who does the doctor report to in the chain of command?
Bill Ogden: There's really. I don't think there is. The medical board, I think is the answer.
Laura Hollingsworth: You're giving them so much credit.
Dana Levy: They advertise him in their media guide because they had published this beautiful media guide that listed all of their executives. Called them executives. He was advertised as their team doctor. But of course, as soon as litigation starts, they back goddle and they run from him and they run from every executive there. Those aren't real executives. They have no decision making. Oh, he's not the team doctor. He's a contract doctor.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, Bill. So I could go talk to him without counsel. Bill.
Daniel Dudko: The favorite defense argument. He was an independent contractor.
Bill Ogden: For sure. For sure.
Kyle Herbert: So who is the dirty verdict team doctor? Do we have Josh? Oh, it's Josh.
Bill Ogden: Listen, Josh, we're just. We're just way soft core compared to the Angels.
Peter Taft: Washington Ho.
Bill Ogden: And then, oh, yeah, Washington Ho came on and we drank his.
Kyle Herbert: He's, uh, our team pharmacist.
Bill Ogden: THC Seltzers. Super slow episode. Lot of Doritos.
Peter Taft: Yeah.
Kyle Herbert: So, uh, Mr. K blamed his superior, whose name was Tim Mead. Were there a bunch of, like, texts and emails?
Laura Hollingsworth: Oh, my God. The text and emails with Tim me were extensive. Um, not only were There a bunch of emails. Like for instance, there was an email from Eric in 2017, so about two years before Tyler died, where Eric is saying, you know, I've got my addiction doc appointment, you know, so like we knew, like there were emails all over the place. They tell a story. Right after Doc Milhous stops prescribing Eric K pills in 2012, Tim Mead tells a story about how Eric, uh, they were playing in New York. Eric comes to him and is having sort of what looks like a panic attack, I think is how he described it. And Eric says, I need help. I need help. I can't do this anymore. They take the Angels team bus in New York with Eric K. Tim Mead, and then the traveling secretary who's like the fixer, the John Clayton or Michael Clayton, M. Michael thing, uh, um, Tom Taylor. And they go back to the team hotel where Eric then explains, like, I'm addicted to these pills. I've been on them for a while. I need help. That's in 2012. 20, 2013.
Bill Ogden: What year did 2019.
Laura Hollingsworth: So this is six years before, so. And then in between, it is clear that numerous. I mean, the HR person, like deleted a text message that she had where she's calling him what, um, tweaker, a tweeter tried to say that doesn't mean he was on drugs. You know, but like everybody in that work.
Bill Ogden: What does it mean? That's what that was the question.
Dana Levy: There was a text message and I'm trying whether it was 18, 17 or 18, where Eric's now ex wife sends Tim Mead and the fixer, Tom Taylor a picture of Suboxone.
Kyle Herbert: What's Suboxone?
Dana Levy: So fair.
Bill Ogden: He's pretending like he doesn't.
Dana Levy: Suboxone. What's Suboxone is right. It's. It itself is an opioid and it's used if you're an addict.
Bill Ogden: It's like methadone to help.
Dana Levy: Um, and so she sends this picture and says, you know, this same, uh, he's. She's like, it's. We're back to the same, right? So she's sending this. By the way, we get these messages from Eric's ex wife.
Daniel Dudko: Yes.
Dana Levy: Because they're. Oddly enough, both Tom Taylor and Tim Mead have deleted almost every one of their text messages.
Kyle Herbert: I'm shocked, surprised and stunned.
Bill Ogden: I know I only keep messages for 30 days for this reason.
Dana Levy: Unless they're from Mike trout.
Laura Hollingsworth: They like 2015, uh, Tim Mead had
Dana Levy: every one of his text messages where he's helping Mike Trout get massages instead of Disney Trips.
Bill Ogden: Wait, was Mike addicted? No,
Kyle Herbert: he's a national treasure dog.
Bill Ogden: But I agree.
Laura Hollingsworth: In 2017, there was an intervention at Eric K's house the day after it.
Kyle Herbert: If you guys ever do that to
Bill Ogden: me, this is what we're doing. Kyle, they're not real lawyers. We're all worried about you. Oh, uh, at least you had a
Kyle Herbert: dumbest for me 10 years ago.
Bill Ogden: Why do you think there's so many of us?
Kyle Herbert: You guys must be close friends. But I. No recollection of you guys at all.
Bill Ogden: Except for here in Loughton.
Kyle Herbert: Thank you.
Bill Ogden: That's the Suboxone.
Dana Levy: That's the Suboxone talking.
Kyle Herbert: Okay, so it sounds like there wasn't like an aha, uh, moment. It seems like there was like a clear path with overwhelming evidence that all of these principles were operating. The full knowledge of what was going on.
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah. So 2017, there was an intervention. Tim Mead, his Eric K's boss. And then Tom Taylor, the team fixer, who, um. Offices very close to the team president, former team president John Carpino. Go over to Eric's house. His. Eric's ex wife, Camilla K. Testified at trial that. That Tim Mead goes into Eric's bedroom and comes out with baggies of pills and individual baggies.
Bill Ogden: I thought they came in bottles.
Laura Hollingsworth: Well, not if you're distributing them.
Dana Levy: It's weird how the drug dealers don't do that.
Daniel Dudko: I'm.
Bill Ogden: Kyle knows. I don't know.
Kyle Herbert: So there's an intervention and I'm assuming no changes after that?
Laura Hollingsworth: Absolutely not.
Kyle Herbert: Yeah.
Dana Levy: So what? Eric.
Leah Graham: Oh.
Laura Hollingsworth: Overdosed at Angel Stadium a month and a half or so before the trip to Texas where Tyler died. And they didn't do anything. They just said, oh, you're back now. Thanks for coming. Get back to work.
Dana Levy: Two years after the vice president of the Angels confiscates six or seven small, individually packaged sets of drugs, there's no
Bill Ogden: such thing as a small pack.
Daniel Dudko: Uh, you say there's no changes after the intervention, but there are a bunch of WhatsApp messages on the angel server that they never looked at, in which Eric K. Is trying to buy Roxies in 30 milligram. How many you got? Over and over in which the HR president said, maybe they're Roxy shorts.
Kyle Herbert: I don't. First of all, I don't know if
Bill Ogden: there can be, but I really don't.
Daniel Dudko: Whatever. That's what I said.
Laura Hollingsworth: That was the street term for oxycodone. Um, they was oxy. Put an R, Roxy. And now.
Daniel Dudko: It's.
Kyle Herbert: All right, I got it. Interesting.
Bill Ogden: It's Like Molly. So it sounds like she's not a girl.
Daniel Dudko: She's just nothing to see here.
Laura Hollingsworth: Head in the sand.
Peter Taft: Have innocuous.
Daniel Dudko: Their defense was Tyler took the pill, right?
Kyle Herbert: Yeah.
Laura Hollingsworth: And he's a horrible human being. And although we formally said they shit on him. And let me.
Daniel Dudko: Let me say something very clearly.
Kyle Herbert: Wow.
Daniel Dudko: Everybody that testified, other than the lawyer, said Tyler was the nicest person. He was one of those guys that the lowest clubhouse employee said. He treated me like I was a great person. He listened to me. A waiter, busboys. Like, Tyler was the greatest human being. His family is the greatest group of people you've ever met in your life.
Bill Ogden: He was like 30, right?
Laura Hollingsworth: 27.
Bill Ogden: God.
Dana Levy: He's the kid that we all wish would be our kid. Like, he was a genuinely good human.
Daniel Dudko: There. There are text messages they showed in depositions where they tried to accuse Tyler of having an affair with a woman. It turns out it was an 80 year old woman that he was just being kind to that was like a relative that was a friend of a relative because he was such a kind person. Like, he was just genuinely a good person.
Bill Ogden: Walk me through who got the production of these texts and who you ran to first and then how many high fives you did before you injured your shoulder.
Kyle Herbert: Did you guys. Did you get like a production of like 30,000 documents and one of you started at one and one of you started at 30,000 and met in the middle, like. Like a noodle from lady in the Tramp?
Daniel Dudko: We got no production from the Angels.
Leah Graham: Right?
Kyle Herbert: Really?
Bill Ogden: All thirds, all third, everyone.
Laura Hollingsworth: For the most part, it was third parties. And then it was once we showed the Angels we already know these exist. Where are they then? It was a lot of work from Laura and Dana, making sure. Okay, we want affidavits from the top people. Artie, Moreno, Carpino. Here's the searches that we did. Here's what we went through.
Bill Ogden: Isn't that the best you're asking for? Artie Moren, Those affidavits?
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah.
Dana Levy: Oh, we got one.
Laura Hollingsworth: We got multiple.
Dana Levy: Uh, because he deleted text, too, but at the same time, I mean, that was the. These guys, like the discovery road. Here was something long we never experienced.
Daniel Dudko: 50 motion to compel hearings.
Leah Graham: Really?
Dana Levy: 50?
Kyle Herbert: Why did it take 50?
Daniel Dudko: At least 50.
Laura Hollingsworth: Referee quit on us.
Daniel Dudko: Our judge wouldn't do it, so he appointed a discovery.
Kyle Herbert: Where was this case filed?
Daniel Dudko: Orange County.
Kyle Herbert: Okay. State court.
Peter Taft: Yes.
Kyle Herbert: Okay.
Daniel Dudko: And he appointed a discovery referee. Our judge did because it was so contentious. And then she eventually quit and we had to get another judge and you
Kyle Herbert: guys did the classic send some discovery, let them lie, go find third parties to prove they're lying.
Dana Levy: We had to serve over. So the Angels took the position that even though they paid their employees to use their cell phones, had a specific writ policy that allowed it, that they were not required to produce anything off their cell phones. So we had to pivot and we sent out, I don't over 50 third party subpoenas for cell phones to self. For cell phones.
Kyle Herbert: Right.
Dana Levy: And, and we, we got, we got good stuff that ultimately really, I think that the high five you want to talk about was Kamala K. Yeah.
Daniel Dudko: Eric's ex wife.
Bill Ogden: And she come to you all.
Daniel Dudko: She was actually his wife at the time. We subpoenaed her and then she agreed voluntarily to produce her phone just to get an image.
Laura Hollingsworth: She didn't like the Angels. She had an. She had an axe to graduation.
Bill Ogden: To be fair, not a lot of people like the Angels.
Dana Levy: She would have been very quiet. So Kamala. Right, Kamala, they have three children. Kamala's primary concern, uh, through all of this was protecting her children. And so the Angels, they tried really hard to talk to her and by the way, to get her to sign an affidavit contrary to a lot of the public reporting of things that was happening. So there had been leaks from the DEA to, um, the press about things that Eric had said during his dea, and the Angels went out and sought out affidavits from his sister, his mom, um, and then, and then Kamala. And Kamala just refused. She was like, I'm not being. I won't be a part of this. And so finally, when we sent our subpoena, we were ultimately able. We just kept saying, look, we'll talk to you informally. We just want to know what happened. We just want to know what happened. And so she hesitantly agreed to sit down and talk to us. And I believe, honestly, I mean, Daniel had this very real conversation with her in which she was just. He was a real human and just said, we just want to know what happened. We want to know what happened in this case and what was going on. And that's when I think she started to realize we weren't the bad guys.
Bill Ogden: How long was the death to that call?
Laura Hollingsworth: It was 20, 25 years. It was after the impeachment, so it was not.
Dana Levy: Yeah, so what did.
Daniel Dudko: And this is a woman that had to work two jobs. She was delivering FedEx at night so she could keep her kids from not being homeless.
Laura Hollingsworth: And Eric was horrible.
Daniel Dudko: And the Angels, who would Happily pay for Eric K's criminal defense later would give her nothing in support. And so she was, uh, obviously upset. Yeah, and she was upset because she felt like the Angels enabled her husband to do drugs and then. And then did nothing to support him or her. Like, her bank account was drained. And so she was upset. She didn't have vengeance. She was like, I just want the truth to get out there.
Laura Hollingsworth: And not only that, she blamed the Angels and the stress of their seasons because they work very long seasons. Eric would work 18 plus hours every day during the season and the off season. So she blamed a lot of Eric's drug use on the stressors that came with the job.
Dana Levy: And they knew about.
Laura Hollingsworth: Which they knew about. They were there for the intervention. They were there along the way. And she just felt like they didn't ever really help him.
Kyle Herbert: So what information did she give you guys? What was on the cell phone?
Daniel Dudko: Just all of the.
Laura Hollingsworth: Well, she gave us the baggies to me coming out the baggies.
Bill Ogden: It was his cell phone that she gave you?
Daniel Dudko: No, she gave us, uh, first.
Bill Ogden: So she.
Daniel Dudko: Because she was so concerned about her husband, she's constantly messaging the vice president.
Bill Ogden: She's constantly.
Daniel Dudko: She's like, hey, he's at it again. He's doing it again.
Laura Hollingsworth: How's it going today? It became so commonplace.
Dana Levy: It was shorthand.
Laura Hollingsworth: It was like, how's today going? And that was signed for. Is he using? Is he out of control?
Bill Ogden: And this doctor still the team doctor?
Peter Taft: Yes.
Leah Graham: Yeah.
Peter Taft: Okay.
Bill Ogden: Until this episode airs.
Kyle Herbert: All right.
Peter Taft: Um, couple of things. One, who else was on the trial team? We haven't even talked about what the verdict was, but who's on the trial team? And what was everyone's role here at the table on that?
Dana Levy: I'll start with Lou. The. So we had a really remarkable. We were four of a much larger trial team. Right. This case came in through Rusty. That's how we all got connected. Um, he was the lead lawyer. Then we had, um, a local council who've been with us from pretty close to the beginning. Bill Haggerty and his folks out of Orange County. Fabulous. I mean, they lived through the trenches of the discovery wars and then carried on into trial. And then a couple months before trial, we had another great, fantastic lawyer, Sean Holley, trialer, join us. And, um, was just. Again, these are all just phenomenal voices and trial lawyers in the room. And so that was to set the table of the group. And Sean had also a phenomenal team that Dana and I, because Dane and I. So when to pivot A little bit to what our roles were. Dana and I were the legal side, the. That. That. That kind of side of things, while Daniel and Leah did all the heavy lifting in court. Um, and we work with some of Sean's great lawyers, um, Kristen and Patty, who I could. I started literally crying on the first time we met with him because I was.
Laura Hollingsworth: We've been so long.
Dana Levy: We. It had just been. We. It was fabulous to work with these amazing, amazing lawyers.
Bill Ogden: Are parents, spouse and children beneficiaries in California. I can't remember off the top of my head.
Daniel Dudko: No, no children. So he didn't have any.
Bill Ogden: Think, oh, yeah, that's a good law. California.
Dana Levy: And because he had no children.
Bill Ogden: Oh, he didn't have any. Okay, I thought you meant because the statue was like.
Dana Levy: But the point is, because he had no children, the parents actually had a claim in California. Had he had children, um, in California, the parents would not have a claim. And so we originally, when we filed our lawsuit, filed a lawsuit in California and in Texas for. And then we ended up, um, consolidating both by agreement in California.
Peter Taft: Right.
Kyle Herbert: So you guys do all this discovery and they've like, no offers to like, screw you guys. He did it to himself.
Laura Hollingsworth: Exactly.
Kyle Herbert: Really? It was a zero offer.
Laura Hollingsworth: It was 100. I mean.
Daniel Dudko: I mean, we went to. Immediately it was an offer, but it would be. It's pitiful. I don't know how privileged it is, but it was pitiful.
Laura Hollingsworth: It was insulting.
Kyle Herbert: I mean, we. Only you would know if it's privileged.
Daniel Dudko: Yeah, I don't.
Laura Hollingsworth: It is privileged. And it was.
Bill Ogden: Don't say it.
Peter Taft: That's the first time Bill has ever said that.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Peter Taft: Uh, okay, so getting to the ver. So the case was against the. Well, can I ask a question?
Kyle Herbert: Was there. Yeah, just a minimous offer. Was there any sort of like, take or leave it off? Like, normally when somebody walks into a mediation and tells me, like, we're paying you 1700 bucks. So there's usually some cocky that goes with it.
Daniel Dudko: So there was a tower. And the layer that would not pay in the tower. The lawyer for that layer was Jim was in our hotel. And so every. Every day after trial, I would come
Bill Ogden: in and go, that was a bad
Daniel Dudko: day for you, Jill.
Bill Ogden: Wait, so.
Dana Levy: And Jim would be like.
Bill Ogden: So this trial flew under my radar. Um, how long was it?
Daniel Dudko: Three months, almost four, three and a half months.
Bill Ogden: I knew it was super long.
Dana Levy: September 21st, we all flew home.
Laura Hollingsworth: December 17th, 19th, 19th.
Daniel Dudko: Just missed Christmas party season.
Peter Taft: Okay, so the case of Noodle, the defendant Was the Angels baseball team only one? Only defendant. Okay. And then the jury, ultimately, what was the cause of action? Uh, I guess against them.
Laura Hollingsworth: Negligent hiring, training, and supervision.
Dana Levy: Okay, is anybody curious, like, course and scope.
Bill Ogden: Was there any med mouse stuff in California that kicked in shoes?
Laura Hollingsworth: That was it. And then we never actually reached, um. The jury never actually returned a verdict because we got a question. We got multiple questions for the jury. But where things really started to pivot in terms of resolution was when we got a jury question that said, essentially, we brought it.
Dana Levy: I carry this with me literally everywhere I go.
Kyle Herbert: You wake up every morning and you're like, read, Kyle.
Bill Ogden: Kyle, read Kyle.
Daniel Dudko: Read it.
Bill Ogden: Who's gonna have the honor?
Kyle Herbert: Oh, uh, Kyle's gonna tease the honor and read it. I don't read good.
Peter Taft: Kyle's now going to read a question by the jury that promoted.
Bill Ogden: Read it in a California voice, though.
Kyle Herbert: We, the jury, in the above entitled action, have the following question. Do we, as the jury, get to decide the punitive damage amount? Question mark.
Daniel Dudko: Great question.
Kyle Herbert: There is no field for it, which I guess means there's no blank to fill that in.
Leah Graham: Right?
Bill Ogden: Uh, was it bifurcation?
Peter Taft: Yes.
Laura Hollingsworth: I got this.
Bill Ogden: So there's no.
Daniel Dudko: No question.
Bill Ogden: I want to give them.
Daniel Dudko: They were lucky.
Bill Ogden: Where can I give more money on this sheet that you gave?
Kyle Herbert: So the judge hits the buzzer and says, we have a question from the jury.
Daniel Dudko: Well, it's even better because all day, we had a day off Thursday. So this is Wednesday afternoon. All day long, we're getting questions about, what do we do about if this goes past Friday, what do we do all day long, just question after question about scheduling. So all of a sudden, the judge walks in, and she has this, like, crazy look on her face, and she's like, you guys better get up here. And we're like, what? And we're like, the schedule's fine. We figured it out. She goes, no, no, no. Come look at this.
Laura Hollingsworth: And then she says, so the answer's gonna be no, but, like, let's see. And then she reads it, and then she just. Cause where we were standing, happens to hand it to me. I read it. I'm standing by insurance. Jim, like, the guy who won't fold.
Kyle Herbert: You're like, jim.
Laura Hollingsworth: And I read it, and I'm obviously, as a plaintiff, you're like, yes. You know, And I hand it to him, and he's like, thanks. And I'm like, jim, my pleasure. And he looks at me like, you're weird. And then he looks at it, and he's like, huh. Uh, okay. You know, and like, understand.
Kyle Herbert: And then within 24 hours, the tower
Bill Ogden: somehow all of a sudden, the tower sort of collapses. Jim's out of the way.
Dana Levy: By the way, we should have mentioned these towers were unknown to us. Correct.
Bill Ogden: Oh, you don't get that in Cali.
Laura Hollingsworth: No, they are.
Dana Levy: Oh, no, you 100% get that in Cali. It's a standard form interrogatory. And they sat through five different signed declarations by their CFO, who now is their president, Ms. Molly Jolly.
Bill Ogden: I'm taking these people's.
Dana Levy: That's her real name.
Kyle Herbert: Her real name is Molly Jolly.
Dana Levy: Huh.
Laura Hollingsworth: She married into it.
Bill Ogden: Actually, she chose that name.
Kyle Herbert: She chose a weird profession to be. Molly Jolly.
Bill Ogden: Yeah. Her profession of covering up for killing someone. Yeah. Weird name.
Dana Levy: Well. And the end she's saying that they had. I. What. What do we think they had? 11,15 million in insurance.
Laura Hollingsworth: Very, very.
Bill Ogden: Oh, I would assume that ladder was way higher.
Dana Levy: And then all of a sudden, a, uh, month or two before trial, we find out it's nine other excess guys.
Bill Ogden: I mean, we have a Lloyd's policy, the floor. There's no living.
Dana Levy: Which makes sense because you would think a Major League baseball team have a massive potential liability would have like their
Bill Ogden: plane goes down like.
Dana Levy: And these are all common policies, but by the way through mlb. So MLB in the background knows all this is sitting out there?
Kyle Herbert: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: All I hear is that Kyle and I can easily run a baseball team better than the Angels.
Laura Hollingsworth: Amen. Absolutely.
Dana Levy: And I don't have high confidence in y'.
Bill Ogden: All.
Daniel Dudko: Yeah, 100%.
Bill Ogden: That's fair. Rule one, Bill, you're. Don't be drug dealers.
Kyle Herbert: Bill, you're not even going to have to quit using drugs.
Bill Ogden: Yeah. I just became like, what The. The HR manager or whatever Eric's name. Eric's job was.
Kyle Herbert: I'm the team doctor now.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Kyle Herbert: You guys, hold still.
Laura Hollingsworth: You're in need of a cfo.
Bill Ogden: We all thought Cohen was a good fixer. No, you're the Angels.
Kyle Herbert: So they send this question out and then did they ask for like, give us a couple hours?
Laura Hollingsworth: I don't even think we actually even had to answer that.
Dana Levy: It was the end of the day. It was 4:28. We did answer it.
Laura Hollingsworth: We did.
Dana Levy: And we was. We did the standard, you know, you
Bill Ogden: are not to consider.
Dana Levy: Well, no, no. I mean, it was even more. Calcium is great. It's like if you determine punitive damages should be awarded, you will be deciding the punitive damages amount, if any, at a later.
Bill Ogden: I need. I need that to be a universal response.
Kyle Herbert: I have that on. Do you guys all have that, like, on a set of T shirts?
Laura Hollingsworth: We should.
Kyle Herbert: We should.
Bill Ogden: Or somebody needs that tattooed on their lower back.
Dana Levy: That's a great idea.
Leah Graham: Good.
Bill Ogden: Good tattoo.
Peter Taft: Who is the kind of lead negotiator on settlements?
Daniel Dudko: It was a whole team of people.
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Daniel Dudko: I mean, when you're talking about a
Bill Ogden: case that big, do they come to you with the number at that point, or do you. They ask you for a number.
Daniel Dudko: I mean, we're getting pretty confidential, so just not specifics.
Dana Levy: But we had. They had mediators.
Kyle Herbert: Right. They.
Daniel Dudko: That after that question, they said, let's call the mediators.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Daniel Dudko: Okay, so mediators.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, we had.
Peter Taft: Yes.
Bill Ogden: You're two different ones.
Peter Taft: Yeah.
Daniel Dudko: At the same time.
Kyle Herbert: You should have just.
Laura Hollingsworth: Who knew each other and had worked together and so, like, is that a
Bill Ogden: California thing where sometimes if it's a big case, bring them both to Navy?
Laura Hollingsworth: I don't.
Daniel Dudko: I don't know.
Peter Taft: Uh, who pays for the discovery referee?
Daniel Dudko: Both sides.
Leah Graham: Both sides.
Laura Hollingsworth: Did we split a 50?
Leah Graham: 50.
Peter Taft: It was very expensive, and they charged, like, a high.
Laura Hollingsworth: A lot of money.
Daniel Dudko: Former federal judge.
Dana Levy: Okay, so through jams originally, and then
Laura Hollingsworth: I think we switched to a different, um.
Dana Levy: Yeah. Judica west second.
Bill Ogden: As we all do. As we all do when we find ourselves in jams.
Kyle Herbert: So what did you guys settle the
Laura Hollingsworth: case for the family is.
Bill Ogden: Wait, did y'.
Laura Hollingsworth: All.
Bill Ogden: Did you ask for a number and open.
Laura Hollingsworth: No.
Dana Levy: No.
Bill Ogden: Okay.
Dana Levy: You didn't.
Daniel Dudko: No, but we didn't close.
Bill Ogden: Oh, you did close. Oh, yeah. So they were deliberating. What'd you ask for in clothes?
Daniel Dudko: I mean, I can see.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, that's public records.
Daniel Dudko: I. I said, look, Tyler's.
Kyle Herbert: You did the close.
Daniel Dudko: Yes, I said, Tyler's economic damages are 150 million. And then when I was going through the loss of consortium, the damage is a little bit different. California, there's not pain and suffering mental language. It's just loss. Consortium. I said, well, that's certainly worth more than a baseball contract. And so I basically asked for 400 million. That's fair.
Bill Ogden: Ohtani crushed that contract. It's not even close.
Peter Taft: They don't have Gregory in California.
Bill Ogden: Uh, no, they don't.
Laura Hollingsworth: Versus Jerry. And is.
Dana Levy: It isn't rearing its ugly head.
Bill Ogden: Right. Or whatever's come after that. That's made it more confusing.
Kyle Herbert: Interesting.
Dana Levy: Oh, excellent. We brought.
Kyle Herbert: Well, something else.
Laura Hollingsworth: And then insurance Jim was crying in the courtroom.
Kyle Herbert: No, you made Insurance Jim cry.
Laura Hollingsworth: I didn't make.
Bill Ogden: The fear of calling his boss made him cry.
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah, Amen. That's what I.
Bill Ogden: Because his reserve was.
Laura Hollingsworth: I have a picture. I'll show you.
Kyle Herbert: I, uh. Every time I send a demand and someone calls me back and says, you know, my adjuster is really upset about that, this, I immediately say, I can't tell you how sorry I am to hear that. This is a tough, tough job. If you're adjuster, usually I know the adjuster's name. If Pam wants to talk, just the two of us. Not about this case, you know, just about the stress going on in her life. I don't want her to be too stressed out. You set it up, and we'll talk. And they're like, what the. What are you talking about? And I'm like, can't take this job too seriously. You know, life too short.
Dana Levy: Okay, good. Oh, I was just gonna say. I will say.
Bill Ogden: I.
Dana Levy: The. The. The confluence of, uh, the insurance, gym and the adjusters and all that was so bizarre, because I really felt like defense counsel wanted to settle this case.
Bill Ogden: Oh, 100%. Every day of trial. He was like, please make it stop.
Dana Levy: I mean, he really. Earl. I mean, like, who was it?
Kyle Herbert: So Insurance Jim wasn't counsel.
Peter Taft: He was just.
Dana Levy: Oh, no, he wasn't try. He was. He was just. He was babysitting his Towers decision. But the lead counsel was a, uh, gentleman named Todd Theodore.
Kyle Herbert: Can you tell us Insurance Jim's real name?
Bill Ogden: Nah.
Laura Hollingsworth: Insurance Jim isn't it?
Dana Levy: I would have to know Jim.
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah, it might be James something.
Peter Taft: I don't know.
Kyle Herbert: So, Daniel, did you talk any more trash to Insurance Jim? I talked.
Daniel Dudko: All of their experts stayed at the hotel. And so every time I'd see him in the lobby, I would be like, I can't wait to cross you today.
Bill Ogden: That's so funny, because there's so many hotels in Orange County.
Dana Levy: You had a great interaction with Dan Duquette.
Daniel Dudko: Dan Duquette saw me in the hall. He goes, you really got me on that one. When I crossed him, he goes, you got me.
Bill Ogden: Just straight up.
Daniel Dudko: Yeah, straight up.
Peter Taft: Is Dan Duquette the gm?
Bill Ogden: No, he was.
Daniel Dudko: They hired him as an expert, but
Dana Levy: former GM of the, uh, Red Sox.
Daniel Dudko: He has other teams wild. He was super nice, though. He was like, you really got me.
Kyle Herbert: Do you normally talk trash during trial? Because I never talk trash during trial.
Daniel Dudko: Oh, I don't know if I ever stop.
Kyle Herbert: Perfect. So we shouldn't hang out.
Dana Levy: Loved it. I mean, Daniel waited until they gave him permission. Permission. But they really. I mean, when he would. There was the best moment, right? Well, one of the best. There were Lots of highlights. But Fennell. Fennell was great. Fennell. And Fennell's been finished with his threats? Oh, no, no. His cross. And then how, Daniel?
Kyle Herbert: So tell us.
Laura Hollingsworth: So this expert is on cross, and he has this email that the other side is trying to paint as he's saying candidly to someone he never thought would see the light of day. This is a house of cards. This case is weak. I don't know how I'm going to give an economic damages opinion.
Daniel Dudko: That was their opinion in this case.
Laura Hollingsworth: That's how they interact.
Daniel Dudko: He used the term house of cards.
Laura Hollingsworth: And he kept saying before he got passed, like, do you want me to explain what house of cards means? I'll explain what house of cards means. And the, um, defense lawyers, like, I don't. I don't want to know.
Bill Ogden: No, absolutely not.
Laura Hollingsworth: So he sat down.
Daniel Dudko: The very last thing that our expert said was, I can explain. And the guy said, no, I'll pass. And I said, I want to know.
Kyle Herbert: I've looked. And the jury would love to.
Daniel Dudko: And the jury laughed. Yes.
Bill Ogden: And they were like, please, the jury.
Daniel Dudko: I'm still in a text chain with the jurors. So they're very good. They love us.
Kyle Herbert: Interesting.
Bill Ogden: And tough to keep that kind of engagement that long.
Daniel Dudko: So we had an alternate who was there the entire.
Bill Ogden: Pissed. No, no.
Daniel Dudko: At the end, she said. She released her and she said, I wish I didn't have to leave.
Dana Levy: Right.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, I bet they're imagining.
Daniel Dudko: But she was so excited to watch the trial. She's like, I don't want to leave. Like, I'm sad this is over. And she was an alternate, and she had to go home.
Laura Hollingsworth: Well, and it's cool because the jurors were, like, on news broadcast. Like, they got interviewed by the press. They, like, you know, it's good for them, too. I think one of them is actually going to be in an upcoming Netflix special that's going to be about Tyler, airing in September. Yeah.
Bill Ogden: Are you any of y' all on it? Uh, because I can make some calls. I got some Netflix contacts.
Leah Graham: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: After the Alex Jones case, I know a lot of people like that.
Dana Levy: I will say, like, I, uh. You know, one of the joys that Dane and I watch, a lot of trialers, we love to go to trial, but we. I always say, I'm not going to talk to your witnesses. I'll talk to your judge all day long. And I watch these guys and what they were able to do over that long period because we had weird timetables. Right. We were very California Is very strict on, um, when the courtroom doors open, like, three hours. We were averaging three and a half hours a day. And these guys were able to maintain a consistency and a connection with the jury. And, you know, it's like their witnesses were remarkable in the way they handled them. And I will say I've said this, and I've told her the best direct I've seen in my entire career. And I'm an old lady at this point, and I get to say that was her direct of Mike Moran.
Kyle Herbert: You're using a lot of pronouns and m. A lot of people.
Dana Levy: I'm sorry, Leah. Uh, Leah Graham's.
Peter Taft: She's right.
Dana Levy: Direct exam of Mike Moran. Well, she had two that were phenomenal. Kamala K. She took Kamala K. The ex wife, Leah, to Kamla on the, uh. On direct. And it was beautiful the way she built the case. It was her, uh. And it was really, really spectacular. But Leah's, um, took a witness that didn't want to testify, didn't want to be there. He was a public figure. He was a ball player who had Right. Had to admit to taking illegal opioids. Um, and he. As at least my opinion was, he was as close as we were going to hear from Tyler's mouth as to why he took these drugs and what brought. What brought him to this place.
Bill Ogden: He testified.
Dana Levy: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: And you got a pro ballplayer to testify to committing felonies.
Daniel Dudko: Well, ask her how she did it, because she met with him on the streets of Huntington, uh, Beach.
Bill Ogden: They're all the same.
Laura Hollingsworth: Newport Beach. Look, Mike's a great guy, and he didn't want to testify, but he was a close friend of Tyler's. He was a teammate. He also received drugs from Eric. Kate. Um, he had testified at the criminal trial, so he had sort of already gotten the dirty, you know, information out there. You know, he confessed to all of this. But he had, you know, a rough time in the criminal trial, like it was. His parents found out about his involvement from espn. It's not an easy thing. His wife had to deal with secrets that he kept from her. So there was a. You know, and from his perspective, he's sharing a lot of very shameful, embarrassing information. He had already done it once. He didn't want to do it again.
Dana Levy: We really didn't.
Laura Hollingsworth: We probably could have subpoenaed him, but we didn't really want to go that route. And so, uh, it just was a lot of, like, Mike would say, let's. All right, I'll talk to you, but you can't take notes. You're not recording anything. So he and I would just walk around his, his neighborhood in Newport beach and just talk about what his experience was. And, and ultimately it came down to if the roles were reversed and he was in Tyler's shoes, what would he want Tyler to do? And he said, it could have been me. It could have been me. It could be my mom suing the angels.
Kyle Herbert: It could be my bill on a different bank.
Dana Levy: That's exactly right.
Laura Hollingsworth: And that's ultimately what I think, uh, made him say, I got to make change. I got to.
Bill Ogden: If I don't know if y' all can disclose. But how much were y' all in this case? Expense wise?
Leah Graham: Significant.
Bill Ogden: You go, um, because like I'm thinking California pricing on three month trial. You like, you have to think you're easy into.
Laura Hollingsworth: Every deposition was in person. So like almost every deposition was in three or four days a week. Multiple. Yeah, more.
Dana Levy: How many experts?
Bill Ogden: How's that?
Dana Levy: How many experts did you take at trial?
Daniel Dudko: So expert. Oh, at trial? I, uh, don't know, nine or ten or something.
Dana Levy: Uh, you took four experts in one day.
Daniel Dudko: Right. And so, but it's weird because in California all your expert discovery occurs right before trial. Right. So they're doing pretrial and I'm deposing experts every day.
Kyle Herbert: So which hotel were you staying at?
Bill Ogden: The Beverly Hills, obviously.
Laura Hollingsworth: Daniel Hotel. He found his favorites, I think.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Daniel Dudko: What was it? It's just the Marriott. It was the area. Uh, there's not a lot of choices in Orange county, just the Marriott.
Bill Ogden: No, there is. You just got to go to Laguna.
Daniel Dudko: Right.
Bill Ogden: The Montage is great
Laura Hollingsworth: for Orange County.
Kyle Herbert: Do you take this? You take your family on vacation to the Marriott in Orange county and you're like, this is it, kids.
Laura Hollingsworth: Now he probably does cuz he's got status.
Bill Ogden: This building built us.
Dana Levy: But we did get to become m really good friends with the concierge at ah, the Marriott. He was a good, good guy.
Laura Hollingsworth: And the people that run the Water Girl restaurant, big fans.
Kyle Herbert: Did you ever go to the um, Balboa Beach Club?
Dana Levy: Uh, I think so.
Kyle Herbert: It's in, it's in Newport.
Dana Levy: I think we, I think we might have. But it wasn't closest so that if it wasn't walking distance or doordash, we probably didn't do it.
Peter Taft: What's the name of the town that the courthouse is in? Santa Ana. Because in some counties up there, there's multiple cities that will have a county courthouse. But that's where this.
Dana Levy: We were originally in Fullerton and then our judge retired and, uh, did a handoff, and then we ended up in Santa Gray. Was incredible.
Laura Hollingsworth: Super fair, very attentive, very decisive. Read everything. She was great.
Daniel Dudko: Read everything.
Peter Taft: You only had two judges over the course of this, correct? Because that's the one thing California is kind of known as rotating judges through a case.
Laura Hollingsworth: No, we got lucky in that regard.
Kyle Herbert: Right.
Peter Taft: Uh, okay. So, uh, kind of winding it down now. Obviously, you got a huge financial recovery. Whatever.
Bill Ogden: For the family. That's it. For the family, Pete.
Peter Taft: For the family. Yeah. Yeah. But also, as you all know, representing people that have lost loved ones, the families always want to know the money is one thing. Did I effectuate change in some way? So do you feel. I mean, obviously you can't see a lot of this, but do you feel that the Angels and maybe Major League Baseball, professional sports at large, have learned a lesson here? Do you think the message has gone out that you've got to do a better job? Institutional question after I finish.
Kyle Herbert: Sorry, sorry, sorry.
Peter Taft: Uh, if anyone's learned, um, as institutional control, which is the. The term the NCAA uses, you think that's been improved through this, uh, process? And then Kyle may have a.
Laura Hollingsworth: A dumber question.
Peter Taft: Another question.
Daniel Dudko: So the. The issue is that because it's high publicity, the family was always questioning whether we were doing the right thing, because every time an article was posted, half of the comments were like, tyler's a drug addict. You know, there's no lawsuit. You shouldn't bring a lawsuit. Uh, over and over, are we doing the right thing? Are we doing the right thing? We knew we were doing the right thing. We knew what we were fighting for. We knew we were fighting for them. They got nervous that somehow the jury or somebody would tell them that we weren't doing the right thing. And so now for them, I feel like there is some closure to know that, yes, all along, all of that fighting, the depositions, all of the monotony, the constant fighting, it was worth it. Because now when they go to sleep at night, they know all along we were doing the right thing. As for institutional changes, I don't know. I mean, it feels like Major League Baseball was unhappy with the Angels, but nothing seems to have changed.
Dana Levy: They've done nothing.
Laura Hollingsworth: I do want to say, though, that I don't know that every team is like the Angels. I do think the Astros aren't.
Bill Ogden: For sure the Astros are not right.
Kyle Herbert: But, uh, that was actually my. My question is, do you think this is a widespread issue of drug abuse or just. Just the Angels.
Laura Hollingsworth: I Think there's probably that guy on every team that can get you what
Bill Ogden: you need pro and, and in college.
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah. And. Well, and not just in baseball. Like we uncovered evidence that it happens in the NBA.
Leah Graham: Right.
Laura Hollingsworth: Like there's reason to believe it happens in other sports as well. But I think there's always that guy that can get you that. I think the Angels were way out in terms of how extreme they let it get. Reckless. Yeah, I do. Thank you.
Daniel Dudko: I, I think we don't, we lose focus of the fact that these are 18 to 25 year old kids who just want to stay up there.
Peter Taft: Yeah.
Daniel Dudko: And they think to themselves, I'm invincible and I can take an opioid or I can take a steroid or I can take something. They don't think of the ramifications. They just know that they've worked their entire lives for this career that's going to last this period of time and they want to just stay there.
Bill Ogden: Baseball is unique because you don't need any college.
Kyle Herbert: Right.
Bill Ogden: You can go straight from high school.
Daniel Dudko: Right.
Laura Hollingsworth: He was 17 when he was.
Bill Ogden: Right.
Dana Levy: I mean, look, I believe this was sustained systemic failure. And I, I, this is my personal. After spending six years in this case because this, well, we're coming up on 7th, the 7th anniversary of his death on July 1st. But I believe it was systemic failure because you have, uh, I mean, tell me what you would do if someone said if you just played 30 games this season you can make 120 million at the end of the year. Tell me what you would do and what, Let me tell you what MLB has done. Despite the fact that there has been a criminal trial in which we know it is undisputed, seven Major League baseball players were receiving illegal opioids on one team. And then we got a civil trial in which the jury, we didn't get a verdict, but the jury was pretty clear that they were going to find them grossly negligent. Ask me what MLB has done. Zero.
Peter Taft: Nothing is a union involved in this.
Leah Graham: The union.
Dana Levy: So you know what the union did? I give them all kinds of props. They passed. After Tyler died, they changed the drug testing rules because. Right. They the players get caught in a catch 22 and that was the problem before Tyler died because you have some states that allow. And I'm talking marijuana medicinal. Yeah, because I'm not even like, I'm not talking opioids. I don't think that the players union in any stretch would say, oh yeah, no, we're cool with our players. No, they're not but they, what was happening with the way the policies is they were becoming global. And so the owners, they wanted an out. And by the way, the number one example of that is go look at Josh Hamilton and what the Angels did to Josh.
Bill Ogden: No shit.
Dana Levy: Yeah, they won an out. They want an excuse to get out of their contract so they don't have to pay these big dollar figures. And so the players union is constantly trying to protect its players. But after Tyler died, they said we want to give in on testing, we want to allow testing. So they allowed random testing of uh, opioids for the first time after Tyler died. And so I don't pretend to be the best expert on all of those negotiations, but I do know that they stepped up to, had played and took care of that. But MLB did and still to this day sitting here have done nothing.
Bill Ogden: Which is, it's weird because like the public Persona uh, during Yalls case changed completely from what's fentanyl to this isn't. This is an epidemic.
Kyle Herbert: Right.
Bill Ogden: Problem. So like, you know, I think Donald Trump ran on, on the word fentanyl. Right.
Kyle Herbert: Canadians are bringing it Venezuelans.
Laura Hollingsworth: The changes that the Angels made, they took their um, their media guide offline. So if you sue them now and you wanted to do research like we did on who everybody was and what the hierarchy, you can't do that anymore. So they made that change.
Dana Levy: Molly Jolly promotion.
Laura Hollingsworth: She went from CFO to president.
Kyle Herbert: Of what?
Laura Hollingsworth: Of the, of the organization of the president.
Kyle Herbert: Molly Jolly.
Bill Ogden: Molly, we'd love to have you on the show.
Kyle Herbert: Looking for a sponsor for the podcast
Bill Ogden: and if the angel, if you want to come on, you will not have a good time.
Peter Taft: Well, I think I know who to call if you have any, if you want to maybe find some information from the media guide. Maybe someone here. Um, okay, I've got a. The mastermind behind this is actually Dana because she has been the quietest I said a word. So yet someone. Something tells me she was behind the scenes kind of coordinating this.
Daniel Dudko: Can I tell stories about. I'd love to brag on day. I love the. What they did like appellate wise, legal wise. But there was a night in which I had to cross examine their primary expert, the toxicologist. And Dana at 3 o' clock in the morning found the textbook that this toxicologist used in medical school that directly contradicted all of his opinions and sent it to me at 3am now this
Bill Ogden: is an appellate lawyer.
Daniel Dudko: She could have just said I'm going to deal with the jury charge and all the rest of it. And she is sitting, sending me at 3:00am um, the textbook that she found online and paid for with her own money, by the way, so that I could cross examine, which turned into such a. A powerful cross examination that at the end of the day, he was still on the stand. They never brought him back.
Laura Hollingsworth: He just disappeared. They said he'll be back on Monday. No, he wasn't.
Daniel Dudko: He's still under oath.
Laura Hollingsworth: And it was never.
Dana Levy: Yeah, Pretense of accuracy.
Peter Taft: So, Dana, how'd you find that out? How'd you figure that out?
Leah Graham: Well, I. I kind of was researching and I figured out that he was full, uh, of, you know what. And so I had to kind of give something to Daniel that he could use that we could. Could get in. And so I went and found the textbook and something that their experts had relied on.
Dana Levy: And so I kind of had a Dolph mission. Remember, you were looking.
Laura Hollingsworth: I started out because we were.
Leah Graham: We were doing expert discovery on the eve of trial. So we had that universal question of like, are we gonna try to strike this guy or are we gonna just let him go and make him look silly? Which, as an appellate lawyer is never the. It makes me cringe. I don't like that. Because it can go all sorts of sideways, um, and rarely works. But we were so close, and we didn't think the judge. She wouldn't have. We didn't think the judge was gonna strike this guy. So that's where we landed. And it worked out. I mean, Daniel did an amazing job.
Kyle Herbert: Job.
Leah Graham: And just.
Kyle Herbert: Daniel is your greatest joy in life. Cross examining?
Bill Ogden: No, it was teaching. No, it's teaching, Bill.
Kyle Herbert: Well, one of.
Daniel Dudko: I said, one day you're gonna host the greatest podcast.
Bill Ogden: And here we are. He saw it.
Peter Taft: So the guy was. Was he on cross when he failed to return?
Kyle Herbert: Yes, yes, yes.
Peter Taft: Never heard.
Bill Ogden: Uh, it's happened once before.
Daniel Dudko: The day has to end at 4:30 sharp. I still had him. And then he was supposed to.
Peter Taft: We had.
Daniel Dudko: Thursday's off. He's supposed to come back on Friday. He never came back.
Leah Graham: Right.
Bill Ogden: I wouldn't either.
Leah Graham: He was like their star witness, remember? And they tried to squeeze you because they're like, he can't come back because he had some sort of conflict. And so they tried to play games with the timing of it.
Kyle Herbert: I think the legal phrase for that is run away.
Bill Ogden: Get outside of subpoena power quickly.
Daniel Dudko: When I say the textbook directly contradicted his opinion. I asked him the phrase out of the textbook before I showed it to him, and he goes, yeah, that's exactly what I did. And then the textbook said, doing this is widely inaccurate. You should never do it. It has no pretense of accuracy.
Leah Graham: And. And he said, I never. And I. I didn't mean to have a pretense of accuracy.
Peter Taft: That was his quote.
Laura Hollingsworth: And that's.
Daniel Dudko: Oh, really? At 4:25 in the afternoon, he said, I never meant to have a pretense.
Leah Graham: I don't think I was trying to have a pretend.
Kyle Herbert: I think that clears it up.
Daniel Dudko: Yes.
Bill Ogden: On a side note, Paxton won.
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah.
Peter Taft: Ah.
Bill Ogden: Oh, he did.
Laura Hollingsworth: He did. Uh, great. We should redo this.
Bill Ogden: AP called eight minutes again.
Daniel Dudko: You guys want to impeach him again?
Bill Ogden: I. I'll give it a shot.
Dana Levy: I have some ideas.
Peter Taft: Uh, how'd you find. Last, uh, word. How'd you figure out, though, that one part from the huge textbook?
Daniel Dudko: She sent it to me.
Peter Taft: 3 o' clock in the morning.
Leah Graham: Yeah, I just went through. I mean, I knew what his opinions were, and I found the chapter, and then I just.
Laura Hollingsworth: That was just one example.
Daniel Dudko: No, no, there's, like. That is just one of, like, 50 examples. I mean, uh, my appellate lawyer stayed up all night preparing for. She would. I would come in in the morning, and she would be like, I found this study that came. This. This Guy wrote in 1920 or 1966, before, when he's a grad student, that directly contradicts his opinions.
Bill Ogden: I mean, over the actual witness wrote.
Daniel Dudko: Yes.
Laura Hollingsworth: Yeah. And to characterize them as just appellate lawyers understates their value. They were trial strategists, and they were involved, you know, pretty every step of the way. You luckily came in right before trial when we were doing summary judgments and stuff. And thank God, because the four of
Daniel Dudko: us would drive home from trial every day, and they would tell us what we screwed up 100%.
Bill Ogden: Oh, I've tried one with them.
Dana Levy: So I will tell you, Dana and I were like the kids when you get in the car with your parents, and I could tell you whether it had been a good day or a bad day.
Laura Hollingsworth: Conversation in the car and.
Kyle Herbert: So when are we all going back to Vegas?
Bill Ogden: California?
Dana Levy: I mean, Booth. All right, who's got a plane?
Kyle Herbert: Not me.
Bill Ogden: M. Oh, uh, yeah, y' all got
Peter Taft: lots of Marriott points.
Kyle Herbert: Yes, I have a ton.
Daniel Dudko: Well, not as many.
Kyle Herbert: Yeah, not as many.
Bill Ogden: You have three months straight of them.
Peter Taft: Uh, well, thanks, guys. That was a. Yeah, that was awesome discussion.
Bill Ogden: Somehow the impeachment was secondary, right?
Peter Taft: Yeah, awesome discussion. And congratulations on a great outcome for a very great work deserving family. Sounds like he was a great kid. And, um, nothing worse in life than losing a child. So, um, I know they were very fortunate to have found y' all and your big, big team and commend y' all for the expense and the time and the just persistence to go. Now, seven years almost from what y'
Bill Ogden: all need to hire a ghostwriter. That is a crazy case that deserves a book.
Laura Hollingsworth: Sam Bloom. Write the book Sam or Netflix Special. I would say we hang out in
Dana Levy: September every day, showed up and wrote what happened. So we have. We. I will say personally, we have a catalog of what happened every day.
Laura Hollingsworth: And.
Dana Levy: And he did a remarkable job. And it's sampling that he spent. He spent years digging.
Bill Ogden: He's Atlantic Athletic.
Daniel Dudko: Athletic.
Dana Levy: He's in this case, despite the fact that he was at the time, he was a. The. A.
Laura Hollingsworth: Not beat writer.
Dana Levy: He was a beat writer. And it was hard for him professionally.
Bill Ogden: Yeah. Because he's burning all of his connections to the team.
Dana Levy: Not happy that he was doing what he did, but he accurately reported what was going on.
Bill Ogden: Don't introduce him to Mike Vrabel. Apparently, if you work at the Athletic, he's got something about it.
Kyle Herbert: So is Michael upset? Is Michael Lewis still going to do the Dirty Verdict?
Bill Ogden: He's already doing. I think, uh, he's already doing it.
Peter Taft: So.
Kyle Herbert: Awesome. We were negotiating with him, and Michael Cryon decided to go with Michael Lewis,
Peter Taft: and I think that was because Michael Crichton passed away.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, we. Kyle, this is like the third time we've broken this news to you on the show.
Laura Hollingsworth: And among other reasons, the fact.
Dana Levy: I mean, if there's a reason to come back. Yeah, it should be.
Kyle Herbert: I can't be responsible for little details for every dead hack. Right.
Bill Ogden: And that's a crazy case, though. I. That is. I've tried some crazy ones. That's a fun one.
Kyle Herbert: Wow. Yeah.
Peter Taft: All right, well, thank you guys for joining us, all four of you. It's a real treat.
Laura Hollingsworth: Thank you.
Kyle Herbert: Absolutely.
Peter Taft: And, uh, so I guess we know where to find everyone, y'. All. Which Yalls website?
Dana Levy: Our website is DPS Law Group dot com.
Peter Taft: Got it. Okay. And you're as sort of Law dot com. Okay. And it's Kirker Garcia for you. Okay. Uh, so find them if you want to do any kind of case. Obviously, there's a great team. Uh, so thanks for joining us. And if you like this, like it, follow, subscribe, LinkedIn, Spotify, Audible, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook.
Bill Ogden: We're everywhere.
Kyle Herbert: Well, every. YouTube.
Peter Taft: YouTube. Yes.
Kyle Herbert: And I should point out, as a podcast, we are not currently using any performance enhancing drugs or opioids. This. This is just a pure, clean performance on our behalf.
Dana Levy: So can I see your phone?
Peter Taft: No.
Bill Ogden: I mean, you can see your ex wife.
Kyle Herbert: Yeah, you can see it.
Peter Taft: Yes. Uh, all right, thanks, guys. We'll see you next.
Bill Ogden: That was great.
Laura Hollingsworth: Thank you.
Peter Taft: All right, we probably.
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