A Philadelphia jury has ordered Fearless Restaurant LLC to pay $200,000 to two former employees who said the company failed to protect them from a coworker who repeatedly harassed them at its Main Line restaurant, Rosalie. Each woman was awarded $100,000 after the panel found the restaurant group negligent, even as it stopped short of finding that Fearless knew in advance the man posed a danger, according to Delaware County Daily Times.
The verdict stems from a lawsuit filed by attorney Ryan Grace in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on behalf of two former female employees, who accused Fearless of protecting and enabling a sexual predator, according to Delco Times. The suit alleged two claims of negligence against Fearless Restaurant LLC and two claims of assault and battery against Daniel Razionale, a former coworker at the company's restaurants. Fearless, which is registered to a Haverford business address, owns several restaurants including Moshulu in Philadelphia and Rosalie in Wayne, the outlet reported.
The first plaintiff began working at Rosalie in September 2021 and worked alongside Razionale, who the lawsuit says repeatedly engaged in sexually motivated behavior toward her despite her telling him to stop. That conduct culminated in November 2022, when Razionale touched her inappropriately, the Delco Times reported. The second plaintiff started at Rosalie in August 2022 and said Razionale made overt sexual comments and innuendos toward her before approaching her while she was kneeling and maneuvering his body so he could rub himself against her hand, also in November 2022, despite her telling him to stop.
Management's Response to the Complaints
The second plaintiff reported the incident to management, but Fearless failed to provide her any reasonable care or discipline Razionale, instead forcing her to keep working alongside him, according to the newspaper's reporting. A separate Delco Times report from September detailed further allegations that Fearless agents attempted to dissuade the second plaintiff from reporting the misconduct, suppressed her reports, and retaliated against her with mistreatment on the job, as reported by Delaware County Daily Times.
That same report, which covered the original filing of the suit, said ownership and management of Fearless had a close personal relationship with Razionale's family. The lawsuit alleges Fearless refused to terminate Razionale's employment, failed to reprimand him or provide corrective training or supervision, and instead transferred him to another restaurant, where the complaint claims he continued victimizing women.
A Criminal History Tied to the Main Line
Razionale's legal troubles predate the civil suit. He was charged in February 2020 in a case related to peeping at a Bryn Mawr apartment building, facing counts of defiant trespass and prowling and loitering; he pleaded guilty in January 2021 and was ordered to undergo a psychosexual evaluation and serve two years of sex offender probation, per the Delco Times account. He was charged again in July 2023 with similar conduct at a Radnor apartment complex, and three women accused him of nonconsensual touching and sexual harassment at Fearless restaurants, resulting in three new criminal harassment charges.
Razionale pleaded guilty to those three harassment charges in May 2024, along with another loitering and prowling charge, and was sentenced to a total of four years of probation with no contact with the victims ordered, the outlet reported. The lawsuit alleged that Fearless knew or should have known Razionale was on sex offender probation and took no steps to protect the plaintiffs or other employees.
What the Jury Decided
Despite that history, the jury did not find that Fearless knew or should have known of Razionale's criminal conduct when he was hired, nor that the company could have reasonably foreseen he would assault either plaintiff, as reported by Delaware County Daily Times. The panel did, however, find Fearless negligent, concluding that negligence caused both plaintiffs to suffer damages — the basis for the $200,000 award split evenly between the two women.
Defense attorneys are now seeking judgment in Fearless's favor notwithstanding the verdict, arguing in a motion that the court made procedural errors and that the verdict went against the weight of the evidence. That motion remains pending before Judge Lyris Younge, as noted by Delaware County Daily Times.
The case echoes a broader pattern flagged by federal regulators. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said unlawful harassment continues to occur all too frequently in the restaurant industry, a dynamic underscored by a separate case this year in which former teen restaurant workers in Pennsylvania sued after an owner's son was convicted of corruption of minors and six misdemeanor counts of indecent assault, according to PennLive.
