California Code of Civil Procedure Section 473 is the statute you use to ask a court to undo a judgment, dismissal, or order that resulted from a mistake, an oversight, or something outside your control. It offers several distinct tracks: discretionary relief, mandatory relief when your attorney admits fault, correction of void judgments and clerical errors, and permission to fix defects in pleadings. For most relief, you have six months at the outside, and often the court expects you to move much sooner.
The Four Grounds for Relief
Subsection (b) is the heart of the statute. It lets a party ask the court to set aside a judgment, dismissal, or order entered because of mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect.1California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 473 Each ground targets a different kind of problem:
- Mistake means a factual or legal error that led to the adverse ruling, such as presenting incorrect information or misunderstanding which legal standard applied.
- Inadvertence is an unintentional oversight, like failing to calendar a deadline or overlooking a required filing.
- Surprise is an unexpected development during the case that a party could not reasonably have anticipated.
- Excusable neglect is a failure to act that was still reasonable in context. A serious illness that prevented timely filing is a classic example.
These four grounds feed both forms of relief under subsection (b), but the two forms work very differently.
Discretionary Relief
Under the discretionary portion of 473(b), the court has the power to set aside a judgment or order but is not required to. You carry the burden of showing that your mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or neglect was excusable and that you acted promptly once you discovered the problem.1California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 473
The judge weighs the facts. How serious was the error? Do you have a meritorious defense or claim underneath the case? Would the opposing party be unfairly harmed by reopening the matter? A party who sat on the problem for months will face a harder time than someone who filed within weeks of discovering it.
Discretionary relief covers a broad range of situations. It reaches your own errors, not just your attorney’s, and applies to any type of judgment, dismissal, or order. The tradeoff: the judge can deny the motion even if you technically qualify, so the strength of your showing carries the day.
Mandatory Relief When Your Attorney Is at Fault
The mandatory provision is narrower but far stronger. When a default, default judgment, or dismissal results from your attorney’s mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or neglect, the court must vacate it if your attorney files a sworn affidavit taking responsibility.1California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 473 Once the statutory conditions are satisfied, the judge has no authority to deny the motion.
The requirements are specific. Your motion must include the attorney’s affidavit of fault. It must be accompanied by a copy of the answer or other pleading you propose to file. And it must be filed within the six-month deadline. Mandatory relief only applies to defaults, default judgments, and dismissals. If you lost on summary judgment or at trial, this route is closed, and discretionary relief or an appeal is what remains.
There is a consequence for the lawyer: the court can order the attorney who caused the problem to pay the opposing party’s reasonable legal fees and costs.1California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 473 Under this provision the attorney’s neglect does not need to be “excusable” at all. The affidavit is what triggers the court’s obligation to vacate.
Void Judgments and Clerical Errors Under 473(d)
Subsection (d) covers a different situation. A void judgment is one the court had no legal authority to enter, typically because it lacked jurisdiction over the parties or the subject matter. Unlike a voidable judgment, a void judgment has no legal effect from the moment it was issued.
Under 473(d), the court can set aside a void judgment or order on a party’s motion or on its own. The subsection also lets the court correct clerical mistakes so that a judgment matches what the court actually directed.1California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 473
Importantly, 473(d) does not impose the six-month deadline that governs subsection (b). Because a void judgment never had legal force, courts generally allow challenges beyond six months, though they still expect you to act within a reasonable time. If you believe a judgment was entered without proper jurisdiction, this is the avenue, regardless of how much time has passed.
Fixing Defects in Pleadings
Section 473(a)(1) is a separate track worth flagging so it isn’t confused with relief from judgment. It gives the court broad discretion to let parties correct mistakes in pleadings or proceedings, including a wrong party name, adding or removing parties, and amending other errors. The court can also extend the time to file an answer or other responsive pleading.1California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 473 You do not need to show mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. The standard is whether the amendment serves the interests of justice, and the court can attach conditions, such as ordering you to cover the opposing party’s costs if the amendment forces a trial postponement.
The Six-Month Deadline
For both discretionary and mandatory relief under 473(b), the motion must be filed within a reasonable time, and in no case more than six months after the judgment, dismissal, order, or proceeding was entered.1California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 473 This limit is absolute. Courts have no authority to extend it, whatever the circumstances.
Six months is the outer boundary, not the target. Even inside that window, the court asks whether you acted within a “reasonable time” for your situation. If you discovered the mistake in week two but waited until month five to file, a judge may deny discretionary relief on the ground that the delay was unreasonable. For mandatory relief the reasonable-time factor carries less weight, since the court must grant a properly supported motion, but filing promptly still avoids complications.
How Courts Judge Excusable Neglect
Of the four grounds, excusable neglect produces the most litigation because “excusable” is inherently subjective. California courts apply a practical standard: whether a reasonably prudent person in the same circumstances would have made the same error.2Cornell Law School – Legal Information Institute. Excusable Neglect
Courts weigh several factors:
- The reason for the delay. A medical emergency or natural disaster is more forgivable than forgetting a deadline.
- Prejudice to the other side. Serious harm from reopening the case cuts against relief.
- Length of the delay. A two-week gap after discovery reads very differently from a four-month one.
- Good faith. The court considers whether the party acted honestly and without intent to manipulate the process.
Indifference to deadlines is not excusable. A party who chose not to prioritize the case, or who ignored warnings about filing requirements, will not find relief here.
How to File the Motion
The motion must clearly identify which type of relief you are seeking, the specific ground, and the facts supporting your claim. You will need a sworn declaration describing what happened, why the error occurred, and when you discovered it. For mandatory relief, your attorney files a separate affidavit admitting fault.
Every motion under 473(b) must be accompanied by a copy of the answer, motion to dismiss, or other pleading you intend to file if relief is granted.1California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 473 This is not optional. Courts routinely deny motions that arrive without a proposed pleading attached, because the statute says the application “shall not be granted” without one.
You file the motion with the court and serve it on all parties. California requires that motion papers be served at least 16 court days before the hearing, with additional time added for mail or electronic service.3California Legislative Information. California Code CCP – Section 1005 The filing fee for a noticed motion in California Superior Court is $60 as of January 1, 2026.4Judicial Council of California. Superior Court of California Statewide Civil Fee Schedule
At the hearing, you present your arguments and the opposing party responds. For mandatory relief the analysis is fairly clean: did the attorney submit a proper affidavit, is the motion timely, is a proposed pleading attached? For discretionary relief, expect the judge to probe the reasonableness of the error and your diligence in seeking correction.
What Happens After the Ruling
If the court grants the motion, the judgment, dismissal, or order is vacated, and the case rewinds to the point before the error. For a vacated default judgment, you file the answer or responsive pleading attached to your motion, and the case proceeds as though the default never happened. You are back in the litigation, with all its obligations: discovery, motion practice, potentially trial.
If your attorney’s fault triggered mandatory relief, the court may also order your attorney to pay the opposing party’s reasonable fees and costs caused by the error. That money does not come out of your pocket, but it can strain the attorney-client relationship and is worth raising with your lawyer beforehand.
Either party can appeal the court’s decision on a 473 motion. If relief is denied, appellate deadlines are strict, so consult an attorney quickly.
Federal Cases: A Note on Rule 60(b)
If your case is in federal court, CCP 473 does not apply. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) is the analog, and while it shares similar grounds — mistake, inadvertence, surprise, excusable neglect — it works differently in ways that matter.5Cornell Law School – Legal Information Institute. Rule 60 – Relief from a Judgment or Order
Rule 60(b) gives you up to one year for motions based on mistake, inadvertence, surprise, excusable neglect, newly discovered evidence, or fraud by an opposing party. Other grounds, such as a void judgment, require only that the motion be filed within a “reasonable time” with no fixed outer limit. That is twice as long as California’s six-month cap for the corresponding relief.
The bigger structural difference is that federal courts have no mandatory relief provision. All relief under Rule 60(b) is discretionary; the court “may” grant the motion but is never required to.5Cornell Law School – Legal Information Institute. Rule 60 – Relief from a Judgment or Order If your attorney’s mistake caused a federal default, you still need to persuade the judge. No affidavit-of-fault mechanism compels the court’s hand.