Martinez v. Angel Exploration, No. 14-6086 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseAngel Exploration, LLC owned and operated a number of wells in Oklahoma. The company outsourced the day-to-day management and servicing of its wells to Smith Contract Pumping (SCP). SCP’s employees, called “pumpers,” checked on the wells routinely. Any needed repairs beyond SCP’s responsibilities were handled by a second company, Natural Gas Specialists (NGS). Plaintiff-appellant Jesus Martinez had been working as a pumper for SCP for three months when he arrived at one of Angel’s wells and found the engine was not running. The process of restarting a well requires pumpers to be in close proximity to the belts, and in this case, to the unguarded belts. While he was waiting to be sure everything stayed in working order, he dropped a crescent wrench. As he bent down to get it, the sweatshirt he was wearing became caught in the belt and his thumb was severed. The thumb was later partially amputated. In his subsequent suit against Angel for negligence in failing to maintain its premises in a reasonably safe condition (alternatively, that Angel intentionally created a condition certain to cause harm), the district court granted summary judgment on a premises liability claim because, under Oklahoma law, landowners owed no duty as to open and obvious dangers, and the unguarded pump jack was such a danger. The court also concluded that Martinez’s intentional tort claim failed because no evidence in the record supported an inference that Angel acted with the knowledge that Martinez’s injury was substantially certain to occur. While this case was pending on appeal, the Oklahoma Supreme Court recognized an exception to the open and obvious danger doctrine relied on by the district court. A determination that a condition is open and obvious may no longer be an absolute bar to liability if the landowner should have reasonably foreseen the injury to the plaintiff. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment on the intentional tort claim, but vacated and remanded on the premises liability claim. " Although we have no doubt the district court’s judgment was correct at the time it was entered, we must remand for further proceedings in light of [recent Oklahoma Supreme Court] opinion."
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