Rule 1032.Waiver of Defenses. Exceptions. Suggestion of Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction or Failure to Join Indispensable Party.

This rule is Pennsylvania’s waiver rule. A party waives all defenses and objections that are not presented by preliminary objection, answer, or reply — the system rewards raising defenses at the proper time.

Several matters survive waiver: a defense not required to be pleaded under Rule 1030(b), failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted, failure to join an indispensable party, failure to state a legal defense to a claim, failure to exercise or exhaust a statutory remedy, an adequate remedy at law, and any other nonwaivable defense or objection. Two of them the court must raise on its own. Whenever it appears, by the parties’ suggestion or otherwise, that the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction or that an indispensable party has not been joined, the court must take notice and act, even late in the case.