Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 9 (2004)

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Cite as: 540 U. S. 443 (2004)

Opinion of the Court

n. 1). App. to Pet. for Cert. 55, 64. Accordingly, the court held, Kontrick was not entitled to a discharge of his debts.

Kontrick moved for reconsideration. He argued that the Bankruptcy Court lacked jurisdiction over the sole claim on which the court had granted summary judgment, the family-account claim. See id., at 71. The court was powerless to adjudicate the claim, Kontrick insisted, because the amended complaint containing the claim was untimely. Governing Rules 4004(a) and (b) and 9006(b)(3), see supra, at 448, Kon-trick maintained, establish a mandatory, unalterable time limit of the kind he then called "jurisdictional." App. to Pet. for Cert. 71. It was the first time Kontrick appended a jurisdictional label to any pleading he filed relating to the family-account claim.

The Bankruptcy Court denied the reconsideration motion on June 8, 2000, and entered final judgment five days later. The court held that Rule 4004's complaint-filing time instructions are not "jurisdictional," and that Kontrick had waived the right to assert the untimeliness of the amended complaint by failing squarely to raise the point before the court reached the merits of Ryan's objections to discharge.

The District Court sustained the Bankruptcy Court's decision denying Kontrick's discharge. App. to Pet. for Cert. 25-38. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in turn, affirmed the judgment of the District Court. In re Kontrick, 295 F. 3d 724 (2002). Both courts relied on decisions of sister Circuits holding that "the timeliness provisions at issue here are not jurisdictional." Id., at 733 (citing In re Benedict, 90 F. 3d 50, 54-55 (CA2 1996), and Farouki v. Emirates Bank Int'l, Ltd., 14 F. 3d 244, 248 (CA4 1994)); accord App. to Pet. for Cert. 31-32. Both courts also agreed with the Bankruptcy Court that Kontrick had waived the right to challenge Ryan's amended complaint as impermissibly late.

The Seventh Circuit found in Kontrick's papers opposing summary judgment nothing that placed in issue the timeli-

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