Attorney Grace is preparing a pretrial motion. Her argument is that the court has no jurisdiction for the cause of action brought by the claimant. Grace is preparing a

• A. Motion in limine.
• B. Motion for summary judgment.
• C. Motion to dismiss.
• D. Motion to suppress.

Answer: (C)

Challenging the court’s authority to hear a case is a threshold issue, and the proper way to raise that challenge before trial is with a motion to dismiss. When Grace argues that the court has no jurisdiction over the cause of action, she is asserting that the case should not proceed in this court at all, so dismissal prevents an improper or unauthorized proceeding from continuing.

To place this in context: a motion in limine deals with evidentiary matters before trial and won’t resolve jurisdictional questions. A motion for summary judgment seeks a ruling on the merits when there’s no genuine issue of fact. A motion to suppress concerns excluding evidence. None of those address whether the court has authority to hear the case, whereas a motion to dismiss directly targets that issue.