$41M HORROR

Jury award after sanitman crushed by sweeper

THE FAMILY of a sanitation worker crushed under a street sweeper won a stunning $41.5 million verdict Tuesday in Queens court.

Steven Frosch, 43, was run over by a colleague while making adjustments to his own street sweeper in a Department of Sanitation garage on 48th St. in Maspeth in June 2014.

“This is one of the largest wrongful death awards in Queens, without question,” Ben Rubinowitz, an attorney for the Frosch family, said.

The jury of six people awarded damages for Frosch’s agonizing death, loss of parental care of his four children and the loss of income for his family.

“The loss has been unbearable to me and my four children and it always will be. I am grateful to the jury for recognizing how important Steven was to us,” his widow, Bina Frosch, said in a statement.

Steven suffered extensive injuries to his chest.

“It was a horrible way to die,” said Rubinowitz, who tried the case with attorney Peter Saghir.

Frosch (photo inset), a former NYPD cop, had worked for the Sanitation Department for 15 years. He was two years away from retiring with a pension. He had planned to then become a financial planner.

It was Frosch’s skills with money — he began saving at 19 — that factored in the verdict, Rubinowitz said. He said Frosch’s frequent advice to sanitation colleagues about how to save for the future helped persuade the jury that Frosch had a viable career ahead of him in financial planning.

His four children were between seven weeks old and 11 when he died.

But they may not see the full $41.5 million. The city plans to appeal the verdict.

“The city recognizes that this was a tragedy and did not contest,” a Law Department spokesman said. “However, the city believes that the jury's verdict exceeds the reasonable limits that have been recognized by appellate courts and will pursue its legal options to reduce the award.”

Hundreds of Frosch’s fellow sanitation workers attended his funeral. Mayor de Blasio praised him as a “New Yorker to the core.”

The garage where he died is now known as the Steven Frosch Garage.

“I’m told he would have welcomed me, talked my ear off about how to improve the department, and then offered me stock advice,” Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia said at his funeral.