Joliet Man Who Fell Into Open Sewer Tries to Discover Who Owns the Manhole

Attorneys for a Joliet man who fell into an open sewer near an Orland Park forest preserve last December have filed a court petition trying to determine ownership of the hole.

Steven Lader, of Joliet, had just finished hiking in the Tinley Creek Woods and was walking back to his car when he plunged about 15 feet into an uncovered storm sewer.

A court summons filed in Cook County Circuit Court was sent to Cook County, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, the Village of Orland Park, Orland Township, Bremen Township, the State of Illinois and the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Lader’s attorneys want to know which government agency owns and maintains the sewer, including ensuring that it is securely covered.

At 5:48 p.m. on Dec. 27, 2014, Orland Fire Protection District responded to a 911 call from a man reportedly calling from the bottom of a sewer, stating that he had fallen through an open manhole.

The petition maintains that Lader was walking south along the shoulder of Harlem Avenue in the northbound lanes between 143rd and 151st streets when he stumbled into the open manhole. He was eventually found in the 14700 block of Harlem Avenue in Orland Park.

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Firefighters managed to extricate him from the hole and brought him to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. The man was treated as a trauma patient for a broken leg, and sprained arms and hands, a fire district report said.

A report taken the same day by Cook County Sheriff’s Police added that the metal sewer skirt and manhole cover had been removed and laid to the side of the opening. The ground under the cover was muddy and no grass had grown “due to the amount of time the cover had been on the ground.”

The petition states that the “respondents” should have known through daily, ordinary care that there was a potentially hazardous, open manhole on the property. Also, the owner or agency in charge of the manhole had a duty to maintain it.

Lader is being represented by Chicago attorneys Brian Eldridge and Elizabeth Schieber.

Schieber said ownership and possession of the storm sewer has not yet been determined.