A Brooklyn jury has found that the city should pay a staggering $19 million to a cyclist who suffered brain damage at age 12 when he was struck by a speeding car, The Post has learned.
It would be the largest legal payout in city history.
The panel believed that city officials ignored the warnings from Gerritsen Beach residents that Gerritsen Avenue needed to be revamped to slow down drivers who fly along the open stretch of road.
The award was part of a $36 million verdict on May 26 for Anthony Turturro, now 19, who was hit in 2004 by a driver going about 55 mph in the 30-mph zone.
“Anthony will need help for the rest of his life,” said his mom, Ellie. “My biggest worry is: What’s going to happen to him in the future?”
The jury found that the city should pay 40 percent of the $36 million award and that driver Louis Pascarella — who had a suspended license at the time — was responsible for 50 percent. They found the teen 10 percent responsible for his own injuries.
Turturro’s lawyer, Robert Walker, of Mineola, LI, said the city’s maximum liability is $19.5 million because it would have to shoulder Pascarella’s share of paying medical expenses and lost earnings. The driver had only $50,000 in insurance.
The city filed a motion to set aside the verdict, saying its “failure to perform a traffic-calming study or to install certain traffic-calming measures was not a substantial factor in causing the accident.”
Pascarella — who pleaded guilty to felony reckless assault and got probation — is also seeking to have the judgment thrown out.
Turturro, then in the seventh grade at IS 381, had just left a Christmas-tree lighting on Dec. 4, 2004, when he biked across Gerritsen Avenue midblock.
He was struck by Pascarella’s red Honda and spent two years in rehab at St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children in Bayside, Queens, relearning how to walk and talk. His cognitive abilities are slow. His golden retriever, Filo, a therapy dog, helps him keep his balance.
He now attends Adelphi Academy, a private school for the disabled.
“His teenage years were wiped out,” his mom said.
Two years before the accident, Councilman Lew Fidler and others sent letters to the Department of Transportation urging a traffic light on Gerritsen — calling it a “potentially fatal situation.”
The DOT would not comment but launched a five-year study after the accident and took the roadway down from two lanes each way to one.