444
Syllabus
powerless to adjudicate the family-account claim. The amended complaint containing that claim, Kontrick observed, was untimely under Rules 4004(a) and (b) and 9006(b)(3). Those rules, Kontrick maintained, establish a mandatory, unalterable time limit of the kind Kontrick called "jurisdictional." The Bankruptcy Court denied reconsideration and entered final judgment, holding 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 denial of discharge, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed. Both courts relied on decisions of sister Circuits holding that the timeliness provisions at issue are not "jurisdictional."
Held: A debtor forfeits the right to rely on Rule 4004 if the debtor does not raise the Rule's time limitation before the bankruptcy court reaches the merits of the creditor's objection to discharge. Pp. 452-460. (a) Only Congress may determine a lower federal court's subject-matter jurisdiction. U. S. Const., Art. III, § 1. Congress did so, as pertinent here, by instructing that "objections to discharges" are "[c]ore proceedings" within the bankruptcy courts' jurisdiction. 28 U. S. C. § 157(b)(2)(J). Congress did not build time constraints into that statutory authorization. Rather, the time constraints applicable to objections to discharge are contained in Bankruptcy Rules prescribed pursuant to § 2075. Such rules "do not create or withdraw federal jurisdiction." Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U. S. 365, 370. As Bankruptcy Rule 9030 states, the Bankruptcy Rules "shall not be construed to extend or limit the jurisdiction of the courts." The filing deadlines prescribed in Rules 4004 and 9006(b)(3) are claim-processing rules that do not delineate what cases bankruptcy courts are competent to adjudicate. Although Kontrick now concedes that those Rules are not properly labeled "jurisdictional" in the sense of describing a court's subject-matter jurisdiction, he maintains that the Rules have the same import as provisions governing subject-matter jurisdiction. A litigant generally may raise a court's lack of subject-matter jurisdiction at any time in the same civil action. Mansfield, C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382. Similarly, Kontrick urges, a debtor may challenge a creditor's objection to discharge as untimely under Rules 4004 and 9006(b)(3) at any time in the proceedings, even initially on appeal or certiorari. The equation Kontrick advances overlooks the critical difference between a rule governing subject-matter jurisdiction and an inflexible claim-processing rule. Characteristically, a court's subject-matter jurisdiction cannot be expanded to account for the par-
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