Rule 12.02.How presented.

Rule 12.02 governs how a party raises defenses to a claim. The default is to put every defense in the responsive pleading -- the answer. But the rule lets a party raise seven specific defenses by motion instead, before filing an answer: lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter, lack of jurisdiction over the person, improper venue, insufficiency of process, insufficiency of service of process, failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and failure to join a party required under Rule 19. This is the rule people mean when they refer to a motion to dismiss.

Timing matters: if a party chooses to raise one of these defenses by motion, the motion must be filed before any further pleading is filed -- a party can't answer first and then move to dismiss later on these grounds. But raising one defense by motion doesn't waive the others; a party can combine several Rule 12.02 defenses in a single motion, or raise them together in the answer, without losing any of them.

The failure-to-state-a-claim defense gets special treatment. If either party submits material outside the pleadings -- affidavits, documents, discovery -- and the court doesn't exclude it, the motion converts into a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56.01, and both sides must get a reasonable chance to present the kind of material Rule 56.01 allows. And when a claim doesn't require a responsive pleading at all, the defenses to it can be raised at trial instead of by motion or answer.