Ms. Santos-Gutiérrez is dedicated to the practice of commercial litigation. She has vast experience with commercial and contractual disputes, condominium law matters, issues regarding Puerto Rico’s distribution and sales representative acts, and construction and insurance claims.
Currently, Ms. Santos-Gutiérrez’ practice is focused on managing complex litigation and coverage disputes on behalf of insurance industry leaders. Since 2017, she has been inmersed in the defense of insurance companies from catastrophic claims in connection with the passage of Hurricanes Irma and María through the Island. This includes the successful defense of insurers in regulatory processes and in several class action suits, which resulted in the summary denial of class certification after limited discovery.
In one case related to Hurricane María, Ms. Santos-Gutiérrez convinced the Appellate Court to reverse the lower Court’s dismissal of her insurer client’s counterclaim against an insured government agency alleging fraud. To that end, Ms. Santos-Gutiérrez successfully argued that the lower Court abused its discretion by dismissing the counterclaim upon construing it as an attempt to intimidate the insured. See ELA v. MAPFRE, KLAN202200082 (TA 2022).
In a federal case, Ms. Santos-Gutiérrez obtained the dismissal of the complaint against her insurer client for lack of jurisdiction, upon arguing that military service personnel do not to acquire a new domicile depending on where they’re stationed, but rather, they retain the domicile they had at the time they entered into the service. See Rodríguez Reyes v. BTB Asphalt, 14-1726 (MEL) (D.P.R. 2016).
Ms. Santos-Gutiérrez also persevered in a case regarding condominium law, were she persuaded the Court to compel a property developer to cede control of the administration of an apartment building to its homeowners association. See Santos Gutiérrez v. Colinas del Bosque S.E., KLRA200900700 (TA 2009),
Additionally, Ms. Santos-Gutiérrez handles a wide array of day-to-day corporate matters for her clients, which she represents before multiple administrative agencies in Puerto Rico, such as the Department of Consumer Affairs, the Department of Labor, and the Bureau of Transportation and Other Public Services.
Ms. Santos-Gutiérrez is a Partner at SCVR. She joined the firm in 2012. Previously, she was a lawclerk for the Honorable Berta Mainardi at the San Juan Superior Court, and worked at 2 boutique law firms whose practices were focused on construction law and complex civil litigation.