Brian Carter and Margarita Rice successfully sought, pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 473, an order vacating the defaults of three clients in a dispute between neighbors over the location of a pier along the parties’ common boundary in Clear Lake. The defaults were the result of a misunderstanding and faulty communications between an insurance company’s employee and the firm’s clients regarding a conditional extension offered by the plaintiffs’ attorney. Courts strongly favor granting relief from defaults entered in such circumstances, which allows a lawsuit to be resolved on the merits rather than on a technicality, particularly at the start of a case, and the Lake County Superior Court (Hon. Michael S. Lunas) granted the requested relief in this case. Defendants who have tendered their defense of a lawsuit to an insurer are often placed in a precarious situation when the insurer is deciding whether to accept the defense and appoint counsel to represent the defendants, so clients should be careful to ensure that their time to file a response to a complaint does not expire while the insurer prepares its response to the tender. Insurers frequently deny coverage in cases where they actually have a duty to defend, so it is a mistake to assume that the insurer will give their insureds’ interests the highest priority.