Sandy M. Eloranto

Shareholder

Sandy M. Eloranto

Shareholder

About Sandy

Ms. Eloranto has been defending insurance companies and their insureds for over 20 years. Her practice includes defending bad faith suits stemming from property damage or UM/UIM claims and counseling insurers on claim handling exposure in property claims in Colorado. Ms. Eloranto also defends premises liability, products liability, and construction cases and handles small E-discovery matters. She previously defended doctors and hospitals in medical malpractice cases as well as drug and device manufacturers in national drug litigation.

Ms. Eloranto has successfully defended her clients in property damage bad faith cases stemming from hail, fire, and other storm damage. She and Katie Johnson obtained a defense verdict in a federal district court trial where the insureds claimed the insurance company breached the contract by refusing to pay for a full roof replacement. Ms. Eloranto also obtained dismissal of the bad faith claims in a dispute over the nature and extent of hail damage to a commercial building by proving the insured had not even provided the information it now claimed made the claim handling unreasonable to the insurance company to consider. She has presented to the Colorado Bar Association, Colorado Defense Lawyers Association, and Claims Litigation Management on handling property bad faith cases.

In addition to bad faith, Ms. Eloranto has defended numerous cases involving catastrophic injuries, giving her the ability to quickly assess complex medical causation and damages issues and retain physicians and other medical experts to defend her clients. She has also managed a number of multi-million dollar E-Discovery collections from the preservation and collection phase through production. She has drafted legal hold policies, managed the collection and production of foreign language documents, and negotiated complicated two-tier protective orders and electronic document production specifications.

Ms. Eloranto was named a Colorado Super Lawyers Rising Star® in 2010 and a Colorado Super Lawyer® in 2019-2023. During her practice, she has been active in the Faculty of Federal Advocates, Colorado Women’s Bar Association (board member, 2005-2007), Colorado Defense Lawyers Association, and the Defense Research Institute. She also served as a consultant to the Swedish Hospital Ethics Committee on Colorado’s medical directive statutes. She is licensed in Colorado and Washington (inactive). She earned her bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University and her law degree from the University of Oregon where she was an Associate Editor for the Oregon Law Review.

Prevailed on a number of pretrial motions in a high exposure insurance bad faith case, leading to a favorable settlement for the client. The Court’s rulings excluded most of the Plaintiff’s bad faith expert’s opinions, the policy limits, evidence about plaintiff’s reasonable expectations when purchasing coverage, reserves, and speculative future lost wages.
Obtained an order quashing substituted service under C.R.S. § 42-7-414(3)(a) on a driver who was not a named insured, on the basis that allowing a plaintiff to use the statute to obtain personal jurisdiction over someone who was not a named insured violates due process.
Obtained a defense verdict in a federal district court trial where the insureds claimed the insurance company breached the contract by refusing to pay for a full roof replacement.
Obtained dismissal of the bad faith claims in a dispute over the nature and extent of hail damage to a commercial building by proving the insured had not even provided the information it now claimed made the claim handling unreasonable to the insurance company to consider.

B.S., Oregon State University
J.D., University of Oregon

Colorado
Washington (inactive)
United States District Court, District of Colorado

Colorado Women’s Bar Association
Faculty of Federal Advocates
Colorado Defense Lawyers Association
Defense Research Institute
Arapahoe County Bar Association
Colorado Bar Association

2010 Colorado Super Lawyers Rising Star
2019-2023 Colorado Super Lawyers

Sandy M. Eloranto

Volunteer Judge for Arapahoe County Bar Association’s Mock Trial Tournament
Oregon Law Review

Presentations
- May 2021: The Gavel, Bad Faith Set Up
- Sept 2020, CBA, Annual Tort Law Update: First Party Bad Faith
- Nov 2019, CPCU (Central Ill. Chapter), Impact of Catastrophic Weather Events On Bad Faith Claims
- May 2019, CLM, Recent Trends in First Party Bad Faith Claims Jan 2018, The Gavel Annual Meeting, Removal
- Jan 2019, The Gavel Annual Meeting, Risk Shifting in Snow Removal Cases
- Nov 2018, CDLA, Defense of First Party Property Bad Faith Claims
Articles

720-625-8833

4949 S. Syracuse Street, Suite 500

Denver, Colorado 80237

Prevailed on a number of pretrial motions in a high exposure insurance bad faith case, leading to a favorable settlement for the client. The Court’s rulings excluded most of the Plaintiff’s bad faith expert’s opinions, the policy limits, evidence about plaintiff’s reasonable expectations when purchasing coverage, reserves, and speculative future lost wages.
Obtained an order quashing substituted service under C.R.S. § 42-7-414(3)(a) on a driver who was not a named insured, on the basis that allowing a plaintiff to use the statute to obtain personal jurisdiction over someone who was not a named insured violates due process.
Obtained a defense verdict in a federal district court trial where the insureds claimed the insurance company breached the contract by refusing to pay for a full roof replacement.
Obtained dismissal of the bad faith claims in a dispute over the nature and extent of hail damage to a commercial building by proving the insured had not even provided the information it now claimed made the claim handling unreasonable to the insurance company to consider.