Rule 55.27.Defenses and Objections--How Presented--By Pleading or Motion--Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings.

Rule 55.27(a) lists eleven defenses that a party can raise by motion instead of waiting to plead them in a responsive pleading: lack of subject matter jurisdiction, lack of personal jurisdiction, lack of legal capacity to sue, insufficiency of process, insufficiency of service of process, failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, failure to join a party, a demand that the plaintiff furnish security for costs, another action pending on the same claim, improper joinder of several claims, and a counterclaim or cross-claim that can’t properly be interposed in the action. A motion raising any of these must be filed within the time allowed to respond to the opposing pleading, or within 30 days after the last pleading if no response is required, and motions and pleadings can be filed together without waiving anything in either.

When a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim brings in matters outside the pleadings that the court doesn’t exclude, the rule converts it into a motion for summary judgment, to be decided under Rule 74.04, with both sides given a reasonable chance to address that outside material. The same conversion applies to a motion for judgment on the pleadings under paragraph (b), which any party may file after the pleadings close but before trial is delayed.

The eleven enumerated defenses, along with the motion for judgment on the pleadings, are generally heard and decided before trial on a party’s application, unless the court defers that determination to the trial itself. Separate provisions in paragraphs (d) and (e) cover a motion for a more definite statement, when a pleading is too vague to answer or prepare for trial, and a motion to strike insufficient defenses or redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter from a pleading.

Paragraph (f) requires a party raising one of these defenses by motion to consolidate every available defense into that motion, or lose the ones left out. Paragraph (g) then spells out which defenses are waived by that omission — lack of personal jurisdiction, insufficient process or service, security for costs, lack of capacity, another action pending, improper joinder, or an improperly interposed counterclaim or cross-claim — if they’re dropped from a consolidated motion or never raised by motion or in a responsive pleading at all. Three things are treated differently: failure to state a claim, failure to join an indispensable party, and failure to state a legal defense can be raised later, in any permitted pleading or by a motion for judgment on the pleadings; and a lack of subject matter jurisdiction can never be waived — whenever it becomes apparent, the court must dismiss the action.