Background: The sinkhole in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, where the victim fell (WTAE/YouTube). Inset: Elizabeth E. Pollard (Leo M. Bacha Funeral Home, Inc.).
A woman was searching for a pet cat with her granddaughter outside a Pennsylvania restaurant when she fell 20 feet through a sinkhole to her death in an abandoned mine, a lawsuit states.
Elizabeth Pollard, 64, died in the winter of 2024 due to negligence by Monday”s Union Restaurant and U.S. Steel, the owner of the mine, the complaint from her family members states. They claim both entities should have known about the hazardous state of the area and guarded against it.
“Defendants knew or should have known of the dangerous condition, including the existence, nature, and unreasonable risk posed by the mine subsidence opening and the area overlying abandoned underground mine workings,” the lawsuit obtained by Pittsburgh ABC affiliate WTAE reads. “The area where [Pollard] fell was a highly susceptible area of collapse due to the years of prior mining.”
On the night of Dec. 2, 2024, Pollard was looking for a lost cat with her granddaughter outside Monday’s Union Restaurant in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, a borough some 40 miles east of Pittsburgh.
As the woman got out of her vehicle to search, she reportedly fell into a 20-foot-deep sinkhole in the ground that lay above an abandoned mine. Her body was recovered four days later about 12 feet from where the sinkhole collapsed.
“The Pollard family is looking for answers and accountability,” the Pollard family’s attorney, Mark Malone, told the local TV station. “They don’t want their wife, their mom, their grandmother’s name, in death to mean nothing.”
Malone said U.S. Steel operated the mine until 1953, but “even though that it’s closed down, they probably still own the mineral rights below the restaurant.” He added that the lawsuit is not just about obtaining money for damages but preventing something similar from happening in the future.
The defendants “were responsible for providing safe parking lots, safe paths, and a safe means of travel throughout” the premises, the lawsuit adds.
When reached by WTAE for comment, U.S. Steel said it was reviewing the lawsuit. Monday’s Union Restaurant did not offer comment.
Pollard’s obituary says she left behind her husband, three sons, her granddaughter, five brothers, “and numerous nieces and nephews.” She “enjoyed flower gardening, crafts and her cats.”
