A trip to buy groceries ended in a hospital surgery room for a Fox Business host, and now she wants Whole Foods held accountable in court.
Jackie DeAngelis, who co-hosts “The Big Money Show” on Fox Business, filed a lawsuit on Aug. 20 in Manhattan Supreme Court against the grocery chain over a dog attack she says has permanently changed her life.
The 46-year-old anchor says a black pit bull sank its teeth into her left hand while she browsed the aisles at the Whole Foods location on Columbus Circle in September 2023.
Surgeons later operated on the wound, according to the lawsuit. DeAngelis’s attorneys say she now lives with visible scarring and cannot use her hand the way she once could.
Legal filings describe the harm as lasting well beyond the initial injury. Her lawyers characterize the damage as ongoing, saying it continues to interfere with routine daily functions.
By the time law enforcement showed up, neither the animal nor its owner remained at the scene, based on police information previously shared with the New York Post.
At the heart of DeAngelis’s legal argument is a claim that Whole Foods dropped the ball on its own safety rules.
The retailer typically forbids customers from bringing pets into its stores, carving out an exception only for service animals under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Her suit contends the pit bull in question was not a certified service animal and never should have been inside the store when the attack happened.
Court papers quote the complaint directly: “[Whole Foods] failed to reasonably enforce its own policies, practices and/or procedures concerning animals entering and remaining within the subject store.”
The filing also states that the company neglected to “exercise reasonable care in controlling and regulating the presence of unauthorized animals within its premises.”
Financial damages sought in the case remain unspecified, though DeAngelis is asking for compensation tied to her medical bills, surgical costs and the emotional toll of the incident.
This isn’t happening in a vacuum — pit bulls have sparked fierce debate for years over whether the breed poses an outsized danger compared with other dogs.
Fatal dog attack statistics gathered by DogsBite.org show pit bulls were linked to about 66% of deaths caused by dog bites nationwide between 2005 and 2024.
Exactly how many pit bulls exist in the U.S. is harder to pin down, with estimates of their share of the total dog population swinging anywhere from 6% to 20%.
Medical researchers studying trauma centers have separately found that when pit bulls do attack, the resulting injuries tend to be more severe than bites from other breeds.
That pattern has pushed lawmakers abroad to act.
More than 20 countries now ban or tightly restrict pit bull ownership, including the United Kingdom, Denmark and Norway, where the breed is largely outlawed except in rare, narrowly defined cases.
DeAngelis’s case now heads into the New York court system, where Whole Foods will have the opportunity to respond to the allegations.
