Fox Business anchor Jackie DeAngelis is suing Whole Foods, claiming a pit bull bit her left hand while she shopped at the grocery chain's store at 10 Columbus Circle in Manhattan, leaving her permanently disfigured with limited hand mobility. The 46-year-old co-host of The Big Money Show says the attack happened in September 2023, and that the dog's owner fled the store with the animal immediately afterward.
DeAngelis filed her complaint in Manhattan Supreme Court on August 20, according to the New York Post, which first reported the lawsuit. Police told the Post the black pit bull bit DeAngelis's left hand, and she has since undergone hand surgery and says she is now unable to perform certain tasks because of the injury.
In the suit, DeAngelis claims the dog was not a service animal and blames Whole Foods for allowing it into the store in the first place. She alleges the company failed to reasonably enforce its own animal-entry policies and failed to properly intervene to prevent the attack once the dog was inside. Whole Foods store policy allows service animals in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act but otherwise prohibits regular pets from entering its stores, per the same account.
What the Law Actually Lets Store Employees Ask
The legal bind DeAngelis's lawsuit highlights is one facing grocery chains across the city: federal ADA rules sharply limit what retail staff can even ask a customer with a non-obvious service dog. Under Title III of the ADA, employees are restricted to two questions — whether the animal is required because of a disability and what task it has been trained to perform — and cannot demand medical proof, training documents, or any kind of certification badge, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
At the same time, federal regulations updated in 2020 explicitly exclude emotional support animals, therapy dogs, and comfort pets from the legal definition of a service animal, meaning businesses are under no obligation to let them inside. New York State retail food sanitation rules go further: under 1 CRR-NY 271-7.30, live animals must be excluded from retail food sales areas altogether, with exceptions only for service animals and police or security patrol dogs, according to the New York Department of State. Non-service companion dogs are permitted at food establishments only in designated outdoor dining areas under strict leashing rules, per New York State Public Health Law § 1352-e — indoor grocery aisles are a different matter entirely under state law.
A Legal Landscape That Shifted Just Last Year
DeAngelis's case also arrives just over a year after a landmark shift in New York animal liability law. In the April 2025 decision Flanders v. Goodfellow, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that personal injury claims can now proceed on ordinary negligence grounds when a dog owner or property controller fails to take reasonable precautions against foreseeable harm, according to Goldberg Segalla. Previously, such claims strictly required proving the owner or handler already knew the animal had vicious tendencies. Under New York premises liability standards more broadly, commercial property operators owe customers a duty to keep their spaces reasonably safe and to act on foreseeable hazards, according to Leandros A. Vrionedes, P.C.
City-level data underscore how common these incidents are. New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene received more than 30,000 reported dog bite incidents citywide between 2015 and 2024, per an April 2026 surveillance report. Separately, city emergency departments treat more than 6,000 animal bite cases each year, with dog bites accounting for over 70% of them, according to City Limits. Municipal bite-tracking data compiled from city health records also show pit bulls and pit bull mixes represent the largest share of reported bite cases by breed, according to Enjuris. New York City Health Code also requires that any animal bite inflicted on a person be reported to the health department within 24 hours, a rule meant to help officials track rabies risk and repeat-biting animals.
A Career Interrupted by Injury
DeAngelis is a Cornell University graduate who earned her bachelor's degree in Asian studies and history cum laude before later graduating from Rutgers School of Law. She spent more than a decade at CNBC, where she served as the network's chief energy correspondent, before joining Fox Business Network in 2019. She is also a breast cancer survivor.
In her lawsuit, DeAngelis is seeking unspecified damages, citing emotional distress and mounting medical expenses tied to her recovery and hand surgery. Neither DeAngelis nor a Whole Foods spokesperson returned requests for comment, and Fox declined to comment, according to the Post's reporting.
