Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443, 10 (2004)

Page:   Index   Previous  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  Next

452

KONTRICK v. RYAN

Opinion of the Court

ness of allegations in the amended complaint. 295 F. 3d, at 735. Instead, according to the Court of Appeals, Kontrick apparently accepted creditor Ryan's amended complaint as properly filed; Kontrick used that complaint, not the original complaint, as a baseline to object to new allegations Ryan made for the first time in his statement of facts supporting summary judgment. Ibid. The Seventh Circuit further commented that "[t]he policy concerns of expeditious administration of bankruptcy matters and the finality of the bankruptcy court's decision hardly are fostered by requiring the bankruptcy court to consider the timeliness of an issue that it already has adjudicated." Ibid.

We granted certiorari in view of the division of opinion on whether Rule 4004 is "jurisdictional," 6 538 U. S. 998 (2003), and we now affirm the judgment of the Seventh Circuit.7

III

Only Congress may determine a lower federal court's subject-matter jurisdiction. U. S. Const., Art. III, § 1.

6 Compare, e. g., In re Coggin, 30 F. 3d 1443, 1450-1451 (CA11 1994) (referring to Rule 4004(b) as a "jurisdictional requirement" and a "jurisdictional bar"), with, e. g., In re Benedict, 90 F. 3d 50, 54 (CA2 1996) ("time period imposed by Rule 4007(c) is not jurisdictional").

7 On brief and at oral argument, counsel for Kontrick suggested that, by noting that the family-account claim was not stated in the original complaint, Kontrick had implicitly invited dismissal of the claim. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 5; Brief for Petitioner 5 ("Kontrick . . . argued that in opposing Ryan's many other allegations as untimely, he had also sufficiently raised the untimeliness of the family account claim."). Kontrick's notation that the family-account claim was absent from the original complaint, the courts below agreed, fell short of an argument that the claim was untimely. 295 F. 3d, at 735; App. to Pet. for Cert. 72. We have no cause to disturb that determination. In any event, we train our attention on the question Kontrick here presented: "[W]hether the deadline set by Rule 4004 is mandatory and jurisdictional and thus cannot be waived." Brief for Petitioner i. See also Pet. for Cert. i. We note, too, that the question whether the family-account claim could properly "relate back" to the original complaint was neither raised in the Seventh Circuit, 295 F. 3d, at 729, n. 2, nor aired in this Court, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 33.

Page:   Index   Previous  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  Next

Last modified: October 4, 2007