Cite as: 540 U. S. 443 (2004)
Opinion of the Court
the Rule as "jurisdictional"); Taylor v. Freeland & Kronz, 503 U. S. 638, 642-646 (1992) (similar ruling regarding Fed. Rule Bkrtcy. Proc. 4003(b)). "[C]lassify[ing] time prescriptions, even rigid ones, under the heading 'subject matter jurisdiction' " can be confounding. Carlisle, 517 U. S., at 434 (Ginsburg, J., concurring). Clarity would be facilitated if courts and litigants used the label "jurisdictional" not for claim-processing rules, but only for prescriptions delineating the classes of cases (subject-matter jurisdiction) and the persons (personal jurisdiction) falling within a court's adjudica-tory authority.
Though Kontrick concedes that Rules 4004 and 9006(b)(3) 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, even initially at the highest appellate instance. Mansfield, C. & L. M. R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382 (1884) (challenge to a federal court's subject-matter jurisdiction may be made at any stage of the proceedings, and the court should raise the question sua sponte); Capron v. Van Noorden, 2 Cranch 126, 127 (1804) ( judgment loser successfully raised lack of diversity jurisdiction for the first time before the Supreme Court); Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(h)(3) ("Whenever it appears by suggestion of the parties or otherwise that the court lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter, the court shall dismiss the action.").9 Just so, Kon-trick urges, a debtor may challenge a creditor's objection to discharge as untimely under Rules 4004 and 9006(b)(3) any time in the proceedings, even initially on appeal or certiorari. Tr. of Oral Arg. 10-11 (a debtor may object after final judgment or on appeal "so long as it's within the same proceed-9 Even subject-matter jurisdiction, however, may not be attacked collaterally. Des Moines Nav. & R. Co. v. Iowa Homestead Co., 123 U. S. 552 (1887); see Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 12 (1980).
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