Gibson

MEMORANDUM **

Plaintiff Paula Gibson 1 challenges the district court’s grant of Household’s motion to dismiss and summary judgment motion. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm in part and reverse in part.

Plaintiff argues that the answer must be stricken simply because it was a few days late, even though plaintiff had not sought or obtained entry of default. We disagree that Rule 12(f) mandates such a result. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f). The general rule in the Ninth Circuit is that default judgments are ordinarily disfavored. Cases should be decided on their merits whenever possible. Eitel v. McCool, 782 F.2d 1470, 1472 (9th Cir. *531 1986). The strong policy underlying the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure favors decisions on the merits. Id. The cases relied upon by the appellants are inappo-site. In those cases, defendants sought relief from defaults that had already been entered. See, e.g., TCI Group Life Ins. Plan v. Knoebber, 244 F.3d 691 (9th Cir.2001). There was no abuse of discretion in denying the motion to strike the answer.

Plaintiff next argues that the contract should be rescinded based on Thelma Gibson’s incapacity at the time the contract was…