Prominent restaurant group must pay $200K for mishandling sexual harassment at a Main Line restaurant, jury says

Fearless Restaurants was negligent in its handling of repeated incidents of sexual harassment at Rosalie, its popular Italian restaurant in Wayne, a jury found in a civil trial last month.

The panel ordered Fearless to pay $200,000 to Jennifer Ford and Brianna Krigelman, two former Rosalie employees who said longtime server Daniel Razionale touched them in a sexual manner at work without their consent.

Ford and Krigelman sued the restaurant group last year, saying Fearless “knowingly, recklessly, and negligently permitted” Razionale to work with them despite a conviction for prowling.

In August 2023, Razionale, 37, was charged with indecent assault and harassment after Ford, Krigelman, and a third Rosalie employee told police he assaulted them at the restaurant. He later pleaded guilty to three counts of harassment in a negotiation with prosecutors, and the indecent assault charges were dismissed.

Ford started working as a server at Rosalie in August 2022. In November 2022, Razionale rubbed his crotch on Ford’s hand as she stocked a refrigerator, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. That same month, the affidavit said, Razionale grabbed Krigelman’s butt “in a sexual manner.”

The suit said Fearless covered up Razionale’s behavior and retaliated against Ford and Krigelman after they complained.

“I finally feel believed,” Ford said of the jury’s verdict. “A big burden was just taken of my shoulders.”

A lawyer for Fearless said the restaurant group disagrees with the verdict. Repeated attempts to reach Razionale were unsuccessful.

Headquartered in Radnor, Fearless Restaurants owns 12 restaurants in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs, including the Moshulu at Penn’s Landing, Louie Louie, and five outposts of the farm-to-table institution White Dog across University City, the Main Line, and Delaware County. The group has plans to open a 13th restaurant in Wayne later this year.

Fearless’ lawyer, Kim Russell, said the company did not know about Razionale’s misconduct at work. While the jury found Fearless negligent, she said, it did not agree with the conclusion that the company knew of Razionale’s actions. She has asked a Common Pleas Court judge to overturn the $200,000 penalty.

Razionale began working as a server at several Fearless restaurants in September 2019, Russell said.

The next year, he was charged with loitering, prowling, and defiant trespass for allegedly peeping at a Bryn Mawr apartment complex. He pleaded guilty to the charges in January 2021 and was sentenced to two years of probation.

In July 2023, Radnor Township police arrested Razionale for prowling and peeping in a separate incident at an apartment complex on the 400 block of Norris Road. He pleaded guilty to charges of loitering and prowling at night in 2024.

Russell said Fearless wasn’t aware of Razionale’s first arrest until November 2022. Had the company known, she said, it would not necessarily have fired him. “Anyone who is arrested is innocent until proven guilty, and employers cannot fire someone simply for being arrested,” she said.

After seeing media coverage of Razionale’s July 2023 arrest, Ford said, she, Krigelman, and a third Rosalie employee told Radnor police he had harassed them at work.

The third employee — who was not named in court documents — told police that Razionale touched her breasts through her clothes while placing a pen down her shirt in December 2022, according to the arrest affidavit. “It made her feel so uncomfortable that she quit her job,” the document said.

Ford, for her part, said she went to police because “it was the right thing and someone had to do it.”

Razionale resigned from the restaurant in summer 2023, Russell said. He pleaded guilty in May 2024 to three counts of harassment, a misdemeanor, in connection with the incidents. He was sentenced to three years of probation and sex offender supervision.

Russell said Radnor police never contacted Fearless about the women’s allegations or the charges against Razionale.

“No one from the police told Fearless about the case, and no one ever asked Fearless for any evidence of any kind, including video,” she said. “Fearless would have cooperated.”

In their lawsuit, Ford and Krigelman said they told supervisors at Rosalie and Fearless’ human resources department about the incidents before going to the police. In response, the suit said, Fearless “made efforts to conceal [Razionale’s] sexual misconduct” by transferring him to other restaurants in the group.

The suit said the restaurant group also lacked proper safeguards — including pre-employment screening, preventive trainings, and clear investigative standards — for handling sexual misconduct.

Russell said that was not so. The company trains all managers on spotting workplace misconduct and maintains an anonymous hotline for employees to report issues, she said.

Ford said Razionale trained her when she first started at Rosalie, and working with him required near-constant boundary setting from the start.

Razionale, she said, repeatedly engaged in lewd conduct around her. He would mimic masturbation, she said, and would often thrust his crotch in her face. Ford said she always told him to stop.

“He’d respect me for maybe an hour … then we’d be back at zero,” she said. “I thought it was something I had to suffer through to keep my job.”

Ford said she talked to her supervisors about Razionale’s inappropriate behavior, and after he rubbed his crotch on her hand, she lodged a complaint with HR. “Nothing I really did before mattered,” she said.

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Fearless responded by first scheduling Razionale for different shifts at Rosalie, the suit said, a move that Ford said limited her ability to pick up extra work. Then, Razionale was transferred elsewhere, the lawsuit said.

Russell said Fearless was unable to corroborate Ford’s HR complaint, but it removed Razionale from the schedule at Rosalie. He was also never intentionally transferred, Russell said: Since Razionale worked across Fearless restaurants, he “maintained his shifts at other locations where he was already working.”

“Fearless never received any other complaints at all about Mr. Razionale’s conduct,” Russell said. They had “no reason to believe that there was any ‘pattern’ of conduct at work.”

After Ford reported Razionale’s behavior, the suit said, Fearless retaliated against her by taking “overt steps to discredit, defame and tarnish” her reputation, leading to lost wages and earning potential.

After Razionale was transferred, Ford said she was scheduled to work in smaller sections of the restaurant and began to receive disciplinary write-ups for what she said was described as a “bad attitude.” Ford left Rosalie in March 2023 and said she has struggled to find consistent work since.

“I left because I felt silenced,” Ford said. “The general feeling [at Rosalie] was that I did something wrong.”

According to the lawsuit, Krigelman experienced similar treatment. Krigelman’s lawyer, Ryan Grace, said she was terminated from Rosalie in August 2023 for alleged insubordination.

Fearless denies retaliating against either woman. Russell said Ford and Krigelman “produced no evidence at all that Fearless said or did anything at all to damage [their] reputations.”