PUBLISH
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

________________ _________________ JACOB McGEHEE; STEVEN RAY HEATH, Plaintiffs - Appellants,

v. FOREST OIL CORPORATION; LANTERN DRILLING COMPANY, Defendants - Appellees, and
SOUTHWEST ELECTRONIC ENERGY CORPORATION, Defendant Third-Party Plaintiff,

v. ENGINEERED POWER LP; TELEDRIFT, INC., Thir d -Party Defendants. No. 17-6238

________________ _________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma (D.C. No. 5:15-CV-00145-C)

________________ _________________ Reggie N. Whitten (Michael Burra ge and J. Revell Parrish with h im on the briefs), of Whitten Burrage, Oklahoma City , Oklahoma, for Plaintiffs - Appe llants. FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### November 6, 2018
Elisabeth A. Shumaker Clerk of Court2 Clark W. Crapster of Steidley & Neal, P.L.L.C, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for Defendants - Appellees.

________________ _________________ Before BRISCOE , LUCERO , and MATHESON , Circuit Judges.

________________ _________________ MATHESON , Circuit Judge.

________________ _________________ Plaintiffs Jacob McGehee and Stev en Ray Heath appeal the distri ct court’s grant of summary judgment to defenda nts Forest Oil Corp. and Lantern Drilling Co. 1 Forest and Lantern leased a drilling device from Teledrift, the plaint iffs’ employer, and returned the device after using it in dr illing operations. Plaintiffs t hen proceeded to clean and disassemble it. Mr. McGehee discovered that, in addition to mu d and other debris, several small bolts had fallen in to the device. While he attem pted to remove these materials, the lithium battery i nside the device exploded, inju ring himself and Mr. Heath. They sued Forest and Lantern for negligently causi ng the explos ion by allowing bolts to fall into the device. Following discovery, Forest and Lantern moved for summary judgment, which the district cour t granted, holding they did no t owe the plaintiffs a duty of care under Oklahoma tort law . Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

1 According to the Petition that c ommenced this case in state co urt, Forest and Lantern “were engaged in a partn ership whereby they shared the right to control the business and shared in all the profits and losses of the busine ss.” Petition ¶ 43, ROA, Vol. I at 34. The parties treat Forest and Lantern as acting i n concert as to all matters relevant to the issues p resented in this appeal.3 I. BACKGROUND
A. Factual Background Forest and Lantern leased a dr illing device from Teledrift. Th e plaintiffs’ expert, Joseph D. Jolson, submitted a re port that described the device as follows: From about 2004 - 2008, Tel edrift and an acquired company’s engineers designed the Proshot; a measurement while drilling (MWD) tool tha t uses wireless positive mud pulsing technology to provide inclination and azimuth measurements to workers at the well surface during vertical downhole drilling. T eledrift and the acquired company’s design team kne w Excell and [Southwest Electronic Energy Corporati on (“SWE”)] as designers and manufacturers of the lithiu m-thionyl chloride cell containing battery packs use d to power MWD tools. Both companies were asked to de sign battery packs for the Proshot MWD tool. Excell wa s chosen as the initial manufacture[r]. The Proshot MWD tool’s c ylindrical battery pack contains six spirally-wound , high-rate, high-capacity DD, lithium-thionyl chlori de cells arranged in series. To make a Proshot MWD tool battery ass embly, the battery pack is slipped inside a copper-ber yllium tube with a wall thickness of almost 0.2 inches . Bulkheads at each end of the copper-beryllium tube keep the battery pack in place and allow electrical connecti on to the instrument package. The Proshot’s battery assemb ly is approximately 41⁄2 feet long. The Proshot MWD tool instrument package is approximately 3-feet long. It has a valve body with a diameter of about 41⁄2 inches w hich becomes one end of the fully assembled Proshot MWD tool. Near the valve body is the locking collar. Whe n the Proshot instrument package is connected to the ba ttery assembly, the Proshot MWD tool is 89.85 inches long . The centralizer has a diameter of about 31⁄2 inches and is the part of the battery assembly furthest from the v alve body. Between the valve body and the centralizer, the diameter of the Proshot MWD4 tool is mostly much smalle r than 31⁄2 inches with the locking collar having the largest diameter. Before shipment to a dr ill site, Teledrift connects the Proshot’s instrument pack age to a batte ry assembly. The Proshot MWD tool’s valve body is inserted into the box end of the cylindrical dri ll collar which has an opening of about 43⁄4 inches. It is pushed further in until it comes to rest on a shoulder at the pin end of the drill collar which has an opening of about 21⁄2 inches. The length of the resulting drill collar as sembly can range from 10 to 16 feet. For most of the Proshot MWD tool’s length, there is a gap between its outside diameter and the inside diameter of t he drill collar. When the drill collar assembly is downhole , the Proshot MWD tool is vertical and the battery assem bly is above the instrument package. During drilling, lubr icating mud or lubricating mud mixed with loss circulati on material (LCM) is forced into the opening at the box end of the drill collar. The mud or mud/LCM mixture travels down the gap between the battery assembly and drill colla r, reaches the instrument package, passes the narrowing gap at the locking collar, slips through holes in the Pros hot’s valve body and exits at the pin end of the dri ll collar assembly. ROA, Vol. I at 137. In their opposition to summary judgment, t he plaintiffs submitted the following diagram and photograph of th e ProShot MWD. ROA, Vol. II at 190-91.5 As described by Dr. Jolson and as depicted above, the ProShot M easurement While Drilling (“ProShot MWD” or “ProShot”) tool, when fully as sembled, includes a valve body, a paddle, a locking collar, a lithium battery, a pi ston, a centralizer, and a6 debris catcher. This assembly fits into a cylindrical drill co llar, also called a drill pipe or “sub.” ROA, Vol. I at 145-46. In addition to the foregoing name s of the ProShot MWD collar as sembly parts, this opinion uses terms relate d to the drilling operator’s use of the tool. The “drill hole” is the hole in the ground wher e the drill pipe containing the P roShot assembly is inserted. “Downhole” refers to the shaft of the “drill hole.” Thus, mud or rocks falling “downhole” necessarily drop into the “drill hole,” and may also fall into the “drill pipe” containing the ProShot assembly , including the lithium battery. The terms “debris catcher” and “d rill screen” (or “debris scree n”) appear in the record without much explanation or discussion. We understand “ debris catcher” to be a part of the ProShot MWD asse mbly that sits on top of the P roShot tool and is placed along with the tool inside the drill pipe (or collar). We understand “drill screen” to be an item that is used to preven t debris from falli ng into the drill hole. Oil and drilling companies use th e ProShot MWD to guide the dri lling process by sending information to the contro llers at the surface level. M ud and rocks frequently enter the drill collar assembly during the tool ’s use. After t he device is returned, Teledrift cleans and disassemble s it by pulling the ProShot MWD tool from the drill collar. Mud and rocks lodged ins ide the collar frequently can impede removal of the ProShot. Teledrift employees use various methods to extract th e ProShot. Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heath worked for Teledrift. Their jobs inc luded disassembling the ProShot devices when they were returned after use. In this case,7 having received the d rilling device from Fore st and Lantern, th e Teledrift crew consisting of Mr. McGehee, who was the forema n, and Mr. Heath and Charles Wheeler, commenced the process to remove t he ProShot MWD tool from the d rill collar (or drill pipe). Mr. McGehee sprayed water i nto the collar to loosen mud . Then he used a pulling tool to remove the ProShot, but it was stuck. He continued to spray water into the collar and observed three or four bolts come out. He then tapped the valve body inside the collar with a 125-pound metal rod to dislodge the ProShot, a me thod he had used before. Mr. McGehee struck the valve bod y in this manner approximately 120 times after spraying water to loosen dried mud. After about 30 minutes of work to remove the ProShot from the collar, the ProS hot’s lithium battery pack exp loded, injuring Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heath, who was standing nearby. Mr. Wheeler wa s not injured. No evidence was adduced that Forest or Lantern knew that bolts had dropped into the drilling device. See Oral Arg. at 3:36-4:02.
B. Procedural Background Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heath filed an action in the Oklahoma State District Court of Cleveland County. They alle ged that at least one of the bol ts inside the drilling device compromised the lithiu m battery pack and caused the explosion. They further alleged that Forest and Lantern negligen tly allowed the bolts to fall d ownhole, resulting in the explosion and their inj uries. The case was removed to the West ern District of Oklahoma under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332, 1441, and 1446.8 After the parties completed disc overy, Forest and Lantern moved for summary judgment, which the district cour t granted, holding that Forest and Lantern did not owe a duty of care to the p laintiffs. It relied on Beugler v. Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. , 490 F.3d 1224 (1 0th Cir. 2007). In Beugler , Burlington Northern & Santa Fe (“BNSF”) had lowered a crossing gate to repair a broken rail

. Id. at 1229. When the plaintiff, a Union Pacific Railroa d employee, lifted the gate f or traffic to pass by, he turned toward a honking truck and injured his neck. Id. at 1226-27. He sued BNSF for negligence. We affirmed summary judgment for BN SF, holding tha t BNSF did not owe a duty to the plaintiff under Oklah oma law. Because the plaint iff had been trained to lift crossing gates and had done so many times, we said this was an “ordinary and unforeseeable work injury” that o ccurred in the “course of perf orming [plaintiff’s] professional duties.” Id. at 1228-29. In this case, the district cour t pointed out that, similarly to the plaintiff in Beugler , Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heath were enga ged in a normal work duty. That is, after Forest and Lantern had used the drilling devi ce and returned it to Tel edrift, they attempted to remove the ProShot from the colla r as they had done many times before. The court concluded that Oklahoma law “sim ply does not extend the foresee able zone of risk, and therefore a duty of care, to Plaintiffs in this case.” McGehee v. Sw. Elec. Energy Corp. , No. CIV-15-145-C, 2017 WL 3088400, at *3 (W.D. Okla. July 20, 2 017). The district court distinguished Delbrel v. Doenges Brothers Ford, Inc. , 913 P.2d 1318 (Okla. 1996), the case Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heath principal ly relied on to oppose9 summary judgment. In Delbrel , the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that a car dealership owed a duty of care to members o f the general public based on f oreseeable harm from faulty car repair. Id. at 1321-22. The district court here said Delbrel does not apply to this case because “[d]efendants paid Teledrift to deliver a saf e tool, not the reverse.” McGehee , 2017 WL 3088400, at *2. In other words, the district court f ound that Teledrift was more akin to the c ar dealership than Forest or La ntern. After denying plaintiffs’ moti on to alter or amend judgment und er Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), the distr ict court granted their motion to certify the summary judgment order for appeal under F ed. R. Civ. Proc. 54(b). Plai ntiffs timely appealed.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review and Applicable Law We review the district court’s gr ant of summary judgment de nov o. Knopf v. Williams , 884 F.3d 939, 946 (10t h Cir. 2018). A “court shall grant sum mary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any mat erial fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a ma tter of law.” F ed. R. Civ. P. 5 6(a). When applying this standard, we view the evidence and draw reasonable inferences t herefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Knopf , 884 F.3d at 946. We apply Oklahoma law because, in a federal court diversity cas e, “[e]xcept in matters governed by the Federal Constitution or by acts of Cong ress, the law to be applied in any case is the l aw of the [forum] state.” Erie R.R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938); Cohen–Esrey Real Estate Serv., Inc. v. Twin City Fire Ins. Co. , 636 F.3d 1300,10 1302 (10th Cir. 2011). We give no deference to the district co urt’s interpretation of state law. Wade v. Emcasco Ins. Co. , 483 F.3d 657, 666 (10th Cir. 2007).
B. Legal Background To prove a negligence claim under Oklahoma law, the plaintiff m ust show duty, breach, and causation—(1) a duty owed by defendant to pro tect plaintiff from injury, (2) defendant’s failure to properly exercise or perform that duty, and (3) defendant’s failure to exercise h is duty of care proximately ca used plaintiff’s injury. John v. St. Francis Hosp. , Inc. , 405 P.3d 681, 691 (Okla. 2017); see Nicholson v.
Tacker , 512 P.2d 156, 158 (Okla. 1973). B ecause the district court g ranted summary judgment based on lack of a duty , we focus on that issue here. Whether a duty exists is a thresh old legal question for the cou rt. Delbrel , 913 P.2d at 1320; Wofford v. E. State Hosp. , 795 P.2d 516, 518 (Okla. 1990). “[T]he existence of a duty depends on the relati onship between the par ties and the general risks involved in the common undertaking.” Wofford , 795 P.2d at 519. A duty may be based on a contract, special r elationship, or general neglig ence principles. Lowery v. Echostar Satellite Corp. , 160 P.3d 959, 964 (Okla. 2007). In their attempt to11 establish that Forest and Lanter n had a duty of care to them, M r. McGehee and Mr. Heath rely on general negligence principles. 2
In Lowery , the Oklahoma Supreme Court decl ared that a duty arises “whene ver the circumstances pla ce [one] in a position towards [another] p erson such that an ordinary prudent person would r ecognize that if he or she did n ot act with ordinary care and skill in regard to the c ircumstances, he or she may ca use danger or injury to the other person. ” 160 P.3d at 964 (citing Lisle v. Anderson , 159 P. 278 (Okla. 1916)); see also Iglehart v. Bd. of Cty. Comm’rs of Rogers Cty. , 60 P.3d 497, 502 (Okla. 2002). It further said, “The most important considerati on” is “foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff.” Lowery , 160 P.3d at 964; see also Delbrel , 913 P.2d at
1321. 3
A foreseeable risk o f harm alone is not e nough to establish a d uty of care under Oklahoma law. The plain tiff must be “foreseeably endange red by defendant’s

2 Under Oklahoma law, “[e]very person is bound, without contract , to abstain from injuring the person or pr operty of another, or infringing upon any of his rights.” Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 76, § 1.

3 The Oklahoma Supreme Court has identified other factors, inclu ding the “degree of certainty of harm to the plaintiff, moral blame atta ched to defendant’s conduct, need to prevent future h arm, extent of the burden to t he defendant and consequences to the community o f imposing the duty on defendant , and availability of insurance for the risk involved.” Lowery , 160 P.3d at 964 n.4 (numbering scheme omitted). To establish duty, Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heath rely only on foreseeability.12 conduct with respect to all risks that ma ke the conduct unreasonably dangerous .” Lowery , 160 P.3d at 964 (emphasis added); see also Beugler , 490 F.3d at 1229 (same standard) (citing Iglehart , 60 P.3d at 502). Oklahoma cour ts use this formulation to determine the “zone of risk.” Lowery , 160 P.3d at 964. 4 Within that zone, a “defendant owes a duty of care to all persons who are foreseeab ly endangered by his conduct with respect to all ri sks which make the conduct unreas onably dangerous.” Wofford, 795 P.2d at 519. 5

4 Oklahoma courts have recognized the difference between foresee ability as a factor for duty of care and fore seeability as it relates to pro ximate cause, which concerns whether the defendant ’s conduct foreseeably and substa ntially caused the injury. See Delbrel , 913 P.2d at 1322; McClure v. Sunshine Furniture , 283 P.3d 323, 329 (Okla. Civ. App. 2012). In Iglehart , the court, having found a duty of care as a matter of law based on forese eability, next found a disputed is sue of material fact regarding foreseeability of the breach of that duty and reverse d summary judgment on that ground. 60 P.3d at 502-05.

5 As Prosser and Keeton have exp lained, “[I]n negligence cases, the duty is always the same—to conform to t he legal standard of reasonable conduct in light of the apparent risk.” W. Page K eeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 53, at 356 (5th ed. 1984). M oreover, negligence “necessarily involves a foreseeable risk, a t hreatened danger of i njury, and conduct un reasonable in proportion to the danger. If one could not reasonably foresee any injury as the result of one’s act, or if one’s conduct was reasonable in light of wh at one could anticipate, there would be no neglig ence, and no liability.” Id. at § 43, at 280. Other commentators have explained that “liability is not imposed unle ss harm would have been foreseeable to a reasonable person—and not only foreseeabl e but recognizable as unreasonably probable.” Dan B . Dobbs et al., The Law of Tor ts § 256 (2d ed.) (June 2018 update).13 Accordingly, under the Lowery/Wofford “zone of risk” standard, if a risk of harm was foreseeable but the ris k did not make the defendant’s conduct unreasonably dangerous, no duty of care will be found. See Lowery , 160 P.3d at 965-66; Beugler , 490 F.3d at 1229 (“foreseeability inquiry” must be “tether[ed]” to “the anchor the Oklahoma Supreme Court has specifi ed: the ‘risks which make th e conduct unreasonably dangerous.’” (quoting Iglehart , 60 P.3d at 502)). 6 “And, if the defendant did not owe a duty of care to the plaintiff, there ca n be no liability for the negligence as a matter of law.” Lowery , 160 P.3d at 964 (citing First Nat’l Bank in Durant v. Honey Creek Entm’t Corp. , 54 P.3d 100 (Okla. 2002)). A brief review of Oklahoma cases applying this duty-of-care sta ndard informs our analysis.
In Lowery , the Oklahoma Supreme Court he ld, under the facts of that case , a foreseeable risk of harm was not unreasonably dangerous and gra nted summary judgment to the defendant based on the lack of a duty of care. The plaintiff, Ms.

6 “[T]o protect the traditional f unction of the jury as factfind er,” the Third Restatement of Torts disapproves of using foreseeability to det ermine whether there is a duty of care. Restatement (Third) of Torts § 7 cmt. j (Am . Law Inst. 2010); see generally Benjamin C. Zipursky, Foreseeability in Breach, Duty, and Proximate Cause , 44 Wake Forest L. Rev. 1247 (2 009). But “some courts have im ported considerations of foreseeability i nto the process of deciding w hether a defendant has a duty to exercise care.” Dan B . Dobbs et al., The Law of Tort s § 256 (2d ed.) (June 2018 update)

. As described above, that is what the Oklahoma courts have done.14 Lowery, sued Dish Network when sh e fell from her roof while att empting to fix the satellite dish that Dish ha d previously installed. Lowery , 160 P.3d at 962. Dish had refused to make minor repairs , and, over the phone, had directe d the plaintiff on how to do the repairs herself by cl imbing on the roof to reach the dish. Id

. Ms. Lowery argued that Dish Netw ork assumed a duty of care when it refused to make the repair and instr ucted her on how to do it. Id. at 965. The court rejected this argument. Id. Although Dish could foresee a ri sk of harm in instructing Ms. Lowery to climb onto the roof, it did not “unreas onably endange r[] [Ms.] Lowery with respect to the obvious risk involved in climbing onto a ro oftop.” Id. 7 The record presented no evidence that “would lead a reasonable prud ent person to view Dish Network’s custome r service conduct, its acts or omissions, as unreasonably endangering Lowery and placing a duty upon Dish Network . . . . ” Id. 8 Finding no

7 “The focus of our inquiry is not whether the risk of harm was foreseeable but whether Dish Network’s conduct unr easonably endangered Lowery w ith respect to the obvious risk involved in c limbing onto a rooftop.” Lowery , 160 P.3d at 965.

8 The court added: To prevent summary judgment, Lowery needed to produce evidentiary materials showin g that the Dish Network customer service employee kne w or should have known of some danger of harm with res pect to the obvious risks of climbing onto a rooftop, such as , precarious location of the satellite dish or precarious h eight or pitch of the roof, absence of an intelligent c hoice to climb to the roof, physical inability to climb a ladder, or a myriad of other15 sufficient foreseeability of ha rm with respect to an unreasonab le danger, the court did not address other policy factors associated with determining du ty of care. By contrast, Oklahoma courts hav e found a duty of care when the defendant’s alleged negligence has created a foreseeable risk of harm to mo torists on public roadways. For example, in Delbrel , the Oklahoma Supreme Court found that a car dealership had a duty of care to a plaintiff who claimed he was injured due to the dealership’s alleged negligent repair of a vehicle. 913 P.2d a t 1319. The plaintiff was a passenger in the vehicle , which had stalled on a public r oadway. When the plaintiff was helping the driver to push the vehicle off the ro ad, another vehicle hit him from behind, causing signifi cant injuries. The court held that “one who is paid to repair a car owes a duty of car e to both the owner of the ca r and to the general public to assure that the repair is properly performed or the o wner is warned of its dangerous condition, where the d angerous condition is discovera ble in the exercise of ordinary care.” 918 P.2d at 1322. Again, in Iglehart , the Oklahoma Supreme Court said a utility company owed a duty of care to motorists whe n it was foreseeable that the co mpany’s alleged negligent tree mainte nance posed a danger to motorists. 60 P.3 d at 500. The court

possible facts which might l ead a reasonable prudent person to view the conduct of the customer service employee to be unreasonably dangerous. Lowery , 160 P.3d at 965.16 said the duty is owed to everyon e “foreseeably endangered” as t o “all risks which make the conduct unreas onably dangerous.” Id. at 502 (quoting Wofford , 795 P.2d at 519). Finally, in McClure , the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals also found a duty. 283 P.3d at 329. The defendant f urniture company had failed to secure boxes of chairs that it had reloaded onto a pick up truck. The chairs f ell off the truck, causing an accident and injury to a moto rist. Applying the foreseeabil ity standard that extends the “zone of risk” to ris ks that make the defendant’s c onduct unreasonably dangerous, the court fo und a duty because it was “foreseeable t hat other motorists could be harmed by improper loading of [the] truck.” McClure , 283 P.3d at 329.
C. Analysis We affirm the district court’s gr ant of summary judgment. Assu ming they allowed bolts to fall into the d rilling device, Forest and Lant ern created a risk of harm. They may also have create d a foreseeable r isk of harm to Teledrift employees who would disassembl e the device containing the ProShot MWD. B ut creating a foreseeable risk of harm does not necessarily establish a duty of care under Oklahoma law. See Lowery , 160 P.3d at 965 (stating that “[t]he focus of our inquiry is not whether the risk of harm was foreseeable but whether [th e defendant’s] conduct unreasonably endangered [the plaintiff]”); Nicholson , 512 P.2d at 159-60 (stating that defendant who created a danger is not per se negligent, especia lly when danger is obvious and plaintiff was aware of it).17 One possible ground to affirm the d istrict court’s grant of sum mary judgment is to regard the particular risk —that at least one of the bolts could cause the lithium battery powering the ProShot to explode—as not reasonably fores eeable. But we think affirmance is more soun dly based on applying the Wofford/Lowery Oklahoma duty-of-care standard. 9 That standard locates within t he foreseeable zone of risk onl y those risks that make the defe ndant’s conduct unreasonably dang erous. As applied here, because it was common for debris to fall into the drillin g device during its use in the field, and because users like Forest and Lantern returne d the device for Teledrift to clean out mud and ro cks, disassemble the device, a nd prepare it for its next use, 10 the defendants did not engage i n conduct that created an unrea sonably

9 Defendants Forest and Lantern ar gue they had no duty of care t o Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heath because they could not have reasonably foreseen t hat failure to prevent bolts from dropping into the dr illing device posed a risk of ha rm from an exploding lithium battery locat ed within the ProSh ot. Aplee. Br. at 25-2 6. A sentence in Lowery appears to provide support: “We h ave explained that a duty of care may arise from a set of circumstances which would re quire the defendant to foresee the particular harm to the plaintiff.” 160 P.3d at 694 (e mphasis added). This passage su ggests that the specific harm—here the exploding lithium battery—must have been reasonab ly foreseeable to Forest and Lantern for them to have a duty to the plaintiffs. We are reluctant, however, to rely on this ground because the O klahoma Supreme Court has used broader l anguage than it did in Lowery to describe the foreseeability standard. For example, in Wofford , the court said that a “defen dant owes a duty of care to all persons who are foreseeably endangered by his conduct with respect to all risks which make the conduct unreasonably da ngerous.” 705 P.2d at 518 (emp hasis added) (quotations omitted).

10 At his deposition, Mr. McGehee r eferred to a ProShot collar as sembly that has been returned from the field as “a dirty sub, as we call it .” ROA, Vol. I at 76.18 dangerous foreseeable risk to M r. McGehee and Mr. Heath. Accor dingly, Forest and Lantern did not owe a duty of care to the pla intiffs, and summa ry judgment was appropriately granted. To establish a duty of care, M r. McGehee and Mr. Heath needed t o show that Forest and Lantern “knew or should have known of some dang er of harm . . . which might lead a reasonable pr udent person to view the conduc t . . . to be unreasonably dangerous.” Lowery , 160 P.3d at 965. They have not done so. Forest’s and Lantern’s conduct was not unreasonable under a rea sonably prudent person standard. They leased t he drilling device. Debris coul d and did fall into the device when it was used. Le ssors like Forest and Lantern f requently returned the device to Teledrift w ith mud and rocks inside. 11 Teledrift employed Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heath to remove t he debris and to disassemble t he ProShot from the collar. Even though Forest and Lantern might have been able to foresee that debris lodged in the collar could pose a risk to Teledrift employees w ho were tasked with cleaning and disassembling the de vice, returning the ProShot wi th that knowledge was not unreasonable under these circumstances. This is especi ally so when the record lacks evidence that Fores t and Lantern ha d any knowledge of bolts having

11 Mr. McGehee testified that “m ud” and “particles” “do get in th ere.” ROA, Vol. I at 78.19 fallen into the collar.
The record evidence about the bo lts cuts in Forest’s and Lanter n’s favor. Mr. McGehee, by his own account, enc ountered three to four bolt s when attempting to remove the ProShot from the collar and thus was a ware that bolts had been lodged inside. He nonetheless continued to attempt to remove the ProShot by hitting the valve body with the metal rod. Neither Mr. McGehee nor Mr. Heat h stopped disassembly operation s when the bolts were found, evidencing that, as in Beugler , it was their job to remove debris, including bolts, and disa ssemble the device in the norm al course. Whatever foreseeable risk the re turn of the device may have pos ed to Teledrift’s employees, to conclude that Fore st and Lantern should have know n that their conduct posed an unr easonably dangerous risk to Mr. McGehee wou ld be “beyond reason and good sense.” Rose v. Sapulpa Rural Water Co. , 631 P.2d 752, 757 (Okla. 1981).
Mr. McGehee’s and Mr. Heath’s rema ining arguments to avoid this conclusion are unavailing. First, Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heat h argue that the deposition test imony of Bryan James “BJ” Pool, Forest’s a nd Lantern’s corporate represe ntative under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6), established a duty of care. Aplt. Br. at 10. Mr. Pool testified it was “comm on knowledge” that drilling oper ators like Forest and Lantern should try to prevent deb ris from falling into the dril l hole and that this was20 akin to knowing that “[w]e don’t want the rig to fall over.” R OA, Vol. II at 269. He further said that “we would take precautions to make sure somet hing didn’t fall in the hole” and that “it’s everybody on site’s responsibility to make sure nothing falls down the hole.” Id. at 269-70, 273. Mr. McGehee an d Mr. Heath contend this evidence is similar to the furniture company president’s statem ent in McClure that his company was aware that injur ies could occur when furniture is loaded improperly. Aplt. Br. at 14-15; see 283 P.3d at 329. The McClure court concluded the company’s knowledge of this d anger established that the fur niture business had a duty of care to the plaintiff motorist. McClure , 283 P.3d at 329. Assuming that Mr. Pool’s stateme nts concerned safety as opposed to addressing only the facilitati on of drilling operations, his te stimony about use of a drilling screen nonetheless did not establish a duty. It may d escribe a preferred or best practice in the drilling fi eld. But as explained previous ly, drilling operators routinely returned the drilli ng device to Teledrift with mud an d rocks inside, knowing that Teledrift cleans, disassembles, and reassembles the tool f or its next use. Even if the used device presented a fore seeable risk of harm to Teledri ft employees, it was not a risk that made the defenda nt’s conduct unreasonably dange rous in light of the drilling operators’ unders tanding of Teledrift’s disassembly an d cleaning procedure that follows the return of the d evice after its use. As stated in Wofford , “[t]he existence of a duty depends on the relati onship between the par ties and the general risks involved in the common undertaking.” 795 P.3d at 519.21 Second, Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heat h point to their oilfield drill ing expert, Richard (Rick) Johnson, Aplt. B r. at 10-11. His report opined that “it is inexcusable and careless for a company to allo w debris to fall down an open drill hole or drill pipe” and that it is “inexplicab le and careless for a company t o not use appropriate debris screens duri ng operation.” ROA, Vol. II at 307. This o pinion might support the breach-of-duty element of a n egligence claim, but not wheth er there was a duty-of-care legal obligation. See Delbrel , 913 P.2d at 1321- 22 (distinguishing between duty of care and breach of duty). 12 Similarly, although th e record does not show whether drill screens were used to stop debris, Aplee. Br. at 22, 13 the presence

12 “It is better to reserve ‘duty’ for the problem of the relatio n between individuals which imposes upon one a legal obligation for the b enefit of the other, and to deal with particular conduc t in terms of a legal standar d of what is required to meet the obligation.” W. Page K eeton et al., Prosser and Keeto n on the Law of Torts § 53, at 356 (5th ed. 1984). We note that the negligence clai m against Forest and Lantern in the plaintiffs’ Petition alleges “negligence,” “p roximate cause,” “injuries,” “ fail[ure] to use reasonable care,” “breaches,” and “damages,” but it does not me ntion “duty of care,” an essential element of an Okla homa negligence claim. Petition ¶¶ 39-41, ROA, Vol. I at 33; see Nicholson , 512 P.2d at 159-60.

13 Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heath, citi ng to Mr. Pool’s deposition, as sert that Forest and Lantern “did not use certain equipment, such as drill scree ns, to prevent debris from falling downhole.” Aplt. Br. at 4. But Mr. Pool’s testimony w as inconclusive on this point: Q. Do you know if t hey had a screen out there on this occasion? A. No. It’s – it’s not written in the report.22 or absence of a drill screen woul d also go to breach rather tha n duty. Nor does the record show that Forest and Lant ern knew that bolts had fallen into the drill pipe. 14 Finally, this argument again does not overcome the need to show that, to the extent there was a foreseeable risk of h arm, it was situated in the zo ne of risk that made the defendants’ conduct unr easonably dangerous. Third, Mr. McGehee’s and Mr. Heath’s reliance on cases like Delbrel , Iglehart , and McClure , each recognizing that the plain tiff owed a duty of care to motorists on public roads, is mi splaced. In each instance, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant had a duty of care because the defendant’s carele ssness—faulty car repair, poor tree maintenance, a nd improper furniture loading—p laced the general public at a foreseeable risk of h arm, a risk that made the defe ndants’ conduct

Q. Okay. A. If I had to guess, I would say it would be, but – Q. But you don’t know as you sit here. A. I don’t know. ROA, Vol. II at 272. Mr. Johnson ’s report states there was “no evidence that the screens were utilized by the operator,” id. at 307, but, as per Mr. Pool ’s deposition, the record lacked evidence that they were not used.

14 Mr. Johnson opined that “it is i ncumbent for the contractor to notify the operator that debris fell in the open hol e or in the drill pipe and what the debris is and the nature of the same.” ROA, Vol. II at 307 . But, as noted above, the reco rd lacks evidence that Forest or Lantern knew that bo lts had fallen into the drill pip e.23 unreasonably dangerous. Here, after Forest and Lantern used th e ProShot in drilling operations, they did not pass on th e contaminated device to ano ther drilling operator for further use, nor did they a rrange for the device to be clea ned and disassembled by someone who lacked knowledge tha t mud and rocks frequently find their way inside. They instead returned it, knowi ng that Teledrift employees rout inely removed mud and debris from the device afte r it had been used. Mr. McGehee and Mr. Heath may have faced a risk in performing this function, but not a risk t hat was the product of unreasonably dangerous c onduct on the part of Forest and Lanter n. III. CONCLUSION We affirm the district court’s entry of sum mary judgment in fav or of Forest and Lantern.