USCA4 Appeal: 22-1762 Doc: 36 Filed: 01/18/2024 Pg: 1 of 18

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 22-1762

In re: LEE ANDREW HILGARTNER,

Debtor.

YASUKO YAGI,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

LEE ANDREW HILGARTNER,

Defendant - Appellant.

No. 22-1778

In re: LEE ANDREW HILGARTNER,

Debtor.

YASUKO YAGI,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

LEE ANDREW HILGARTNER,

Defendant - Appellant. USCA4 Appeal: 22-1762 Doc: 36 Filed: 01/18/2024 Pg: 2 of 18

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Rossie D. Alston, Jr., District Judge. (1:21-cv-01179-RDA-TCB; 1:21-cv- 01123-RDA-TCB)

Argued: October 25, 2023 Decided: January 18, 2024

Before HARRIS and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges, and Kenneth D. BELL, United States District Judge for the Western District of North Carolina, sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Harris wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge Quattlebaum and Judge Bell joined.

James A. DeVita, LAW OFFICE OF JAMES A. DEVITA, Arlington, Virginia, for Appellant. Alfredo Acin, OFFIT KURMAN, P.C., Tysons Corner, Virginia, for Appellee.

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PAMELA HARRIS, Circuit Judge:

The Bankruptcy Code excepts from discharge debts “for willful and malicious

injury” to another.

(a)(6). The question in this case is whether and to what

extent money owed under a pre-suit settlement agreement arising from such injury falls

within the scope of § 523(a)(6). We agree with the district court that the debts at issue here

are non-dischargeable under § 523(a)(6) and therefore affirm its judgment.

I.

A.

To give debtors a “fresh start,” the Bankruptcy Code starts from a “presumption of

dischargeability.” In re Strack,

, 496–97 (4th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation

marks omitted). Under that presumption, “‘all legal obligations of the debtor, no matter

how remote or contingent’ are potentially dischargeable in bankruptcy.”

at 497 (quoting

H.R. Rep. No. 95-595, at 309 (1977)).

But there are exceptions to the general rule of dischargeability, set out by Congress

in

(a). Id.; see Lamar, Archer & Cofrin, LLP v. Appling,

(2018). This case turns on one such exception, barring the discharge of “any debt . . .

for willful and malicious injury by the debtor to another entity or to the property of another

entity.”

(a)(6). It is no longer disputed that the debtor here caused “willful

and malicious injury” within the meaning of that exception. Instead, the parties spar over

two questions: whether a settlement agreement entered to preempt litigation over a “willful

and malicious injury” creates a non-dischargeable “debt for” that injury; and, if so, whether

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debts incurred in collecting on the settlement agreement are likewise non-dischargeable

under § 523(a)(6).

B.

In 2010, Lee Andrew Hilgartner physically assaulted Yasuko Yagi in two separate

incidents. After the assaults, the parties entered into two agreements obligating Hilgartner

to compensate Yagi for the harm he caused her. The first, not directly at issue here,

describes the assaults, with Hilgartner admitting to “grab[bing]” Yagi “by the hair,”

“hit[ting] her head and shoulders” into a car door, and “grab[bing] both of her arms

forcefully, resulting in bruising on her arms and hands.” J.A. 131. That agreement required

Hilgartner to pay Yagi $80,000 in installments.

Yagi did not release her claims, however, and years later she and Hilgartner entered

into the settlement agreement that gives rise to this case. The agreement reiterates

Hilgartner’s “factual and legal responsibility” for “his infliction of . . . Yagi’s injuries.”

J.A. 70. It then explains that in order “[t]o avoid the time and expense of litigation,” id.,

Hilgartner will pay Yagi $415,000 (the “principal”) in installments, as well as fifteen

percent interest on untimely payments. The agreement also grants reasonable attorney’s

fees to the prevailing party in any action commenced to enforce or interpret the settlement.

Though Hilgartner paid a chunk of his obligation – totaling $185,955 over some

years – he did not keep up. Instead, he stopped paying, and in 2019, Yagi sued to enforce

the settlement agreement. See Yagi v. Hilgartner, No. 1:19-cv-01305-RDA-TCB (E.D.

Va.). Two days before a scheduled hearing on Yagi’s motion for default judgment,

Hilgartner filed for bankruptcy, thereby staying Yagi’s enforcement action. Yagi filed a

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proof of claim with the bankruptcy court and objected to Hilgartner’s bankruptcy plan on

the ground that the debt he owed her was non-dischargeable as a debt for willful and

malicious injury.

Yagi then filed the action from which this appeal arises: a complaint to determine

the dischargeability of Hilgartner’s debt to her. She sought a declaration that the full

amount Hilgartner owed her under the settlement agreement – including, as relevant here,

not only unpaid principal but also interest on late payments and attorney’s fees incurred in

enforcing the settlement – was non-dischargeable because the agreement “intended to

compensate [her] for the injuries she sustained from [Hilgartner’s] intentional and

malicious actions.” J.A. 68–69.

C.

In the bankruptcy court, Hilgartner vigorously disputed whether he had inflicted

“willful and malicious injury” within the meaning of § 523(a)(6) by assaulting Yagi. The

bankruptcy court concluded that he had, crediting Yagi’s testimony and Hilgartner’s

“written acknowledgements of the wrongfulness of his conduct.” J.A. 140–41. As a result,

it held the unpaid $229,045 of the principal – the $415,000 the agreement demanded less

the $185,955 Hilgartner had already paid – non-dischargeable under § 523(a)(6). J.A. 141.

But the bankruptcy court reached a different conclusion regarding other debts due

under the settlement agreement, which we refer to together here as “collection debts”: the

fifteen percent interest accrued on Hilgartner’s tardy payments and the attorney’s fees Yagi

incurred in collecting on the settlement agreement. J.A. 142. In analyzing those amounts,

the bankruptcy court recognized that all debts “arising from” willful and malicious injury

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are covered by § 523(a)(6) and hence non-dischargeable. J.A. 142 (citing Cohen v. de la

Cruz,

(1998)). But, the court reasoned, the collection debts – unlike the

principal debt – “d[id] not flow directly from the injuries sustained” but instead “came into

being years later when the parties signed the Settlement Agreement.” J.A. 143–44. That

separation between injury and liability, it believed, took the collection debts outside the

terms of § 523(a)(6) and made them dischargeable. J.A. 144.

On appeal to the district court, Hilgartner argued that the bankruptcy court erred in

finding any part of his debt non-dischargeable. According to Hilgartner, neither the

principal debt nor the collection debt came within the § 523(a)(6) exception, because both

arose from a settlement agreement rather than a judgment. It followed, Hilgartner

contended, that his entire debt was “for” a breach of contract – and thus dischargeable in

bankruptcy – rather than “for” a willful and malicious injury under § 523(a)(6).

The district court disagreed on both counts, affirming in part and reversing in part

the bankruptcy court’s decision. Hilgartner v. Yagi,

, 127 (E.D. Va. 2022).

The district court first addressed the dischargeability of the outstanding principal amount

of $229,045. Here, it agreed with the bankruptcy court, rejecting Hilgartner’s contention

that the settlement agreement had “convert[ed]” a non-dischargeable “tort claim” into a

dischargeable “contract claim.”

. Like the bankruptcy court, the district court

concluded that Supreme Court precedent “squarely resolved” this issue in Yagi’s favor: In

Archer v. Warner,

(2003), “the Court held that . . . money promised in a

settlement contract arising out of [a] tort . . . retain[s] the character of the underlying tort”

for dischargeability purposes. Hilgartner, 643 B.R. at 117. “[T]he true nature of the debt,”

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rather than the formal mechanism imposing it, controls. Id. (quoting Brown v. Felsen,

(1979)). Because the settlement agreement here arose out of a willful and

malicious injury, it created a non-dischargeable debt. Id. at 119. 1

But the district court departed from the bankruptcy court as to the collection debts.

The district court saw no reason to disaggregate, for purposes of dischargeability under

§ 523(a)(6), “a settlement award flowing from tortious conduct” and “ancillary costs meant

to enforce and collect on” that settlement award. Id. at 125. Both debts “aris[e]” from the

same willful and malicious injury, the court reasoned, so both debts are non-dischargeable.

Id. at 123–26 (quoting Cohen,

).

Hilgartner timely appealed.

II.

On appeal, Hilgartner presses the same arguments as before the district court. His

opening position is that both his principal debt and his collection debt are dischargeable

because both are routine debts for breach of contract – the settlement agreement – rather

than debts for the underlying willful and malicious injury. But even if the principal amount

owed under the settlement agreement is non-dischargeable, he continues, the bankruptcy

1 Although Hilgartner did not appeal the bankruptcy court’s determination that he had inflicted a “willful and malicious injury” for purposes of § 523(a)(6), the district court performed a de novo review of that conclusion and agreed. Id. Hilgartner again declines to challenge that holding before us, so we consider it resolved.

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court had it right: The collection debt is one step further removed from the original tort

and thus falls outside the scope of § 523(a)(6).

“When considering an appeal from a district court acting in its capacity as a

bankruptcy appellate court,” we conduct “an independent review of the bankruptcy court’s

decision, reviewing factual findings for clear error and legal conclusions de novo.”

SummitBridge Nat’l Invs. III, LLC v. Faison,

(4th Cir. 2019) (quoting

Dep’t of Soc. Servs., Div. of Child Support Enf’t v. Webb,

(4th Cir.

2018)). Hilgartner does not appeal any factual determinations as clearly erroneous, nor

does he challenge the conclusion that he inflicted willful and malicious injury within the

meaning of § 523(a)(6). Instead, this appeal turns primarily on one legal question: whether

the Bankruptcy Code permits Hilgartner to discharge his debt to Yagi. 2

A.

A “debt” falls within § 523(a)(6)’s exception from discharge if it is “for willful and

malicious injury by the debtor to another entity or to the property of another entity.”

(a)(6). In this case, the “willful and malicious injury” is now a given; the issue

is whether amounts due under the parties’ settlement agreement are “debt for” that injury.

And on that question, the Supreme Court has provided important guidance, instructing that

the introductory phrase “debt for” – which prefaces most of § 523(a)’s exceptions to

2 Hilgartner also challenges the bankruptcy court’s calculation of the principal amount due under the settlement and its allowance of interest accrued prior to the filing of his petition. The bankruptcy and district courts both rejected Hilgartner’s arguments on these fronts, see J.A. 142 n.6, 145; Hilgartner, 643 B.R. at 120–21, 126, and we find no error in their holdings.

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discharge – “connot[es] broadly any liability arising from the specified” conduct. See

Cohen,

. “‘[D]ebt as a result of,’ ‘debt with respect to,’ ‘debt by reason of,’

and the like” – all count as “debt for.”

Applied here, that makes the “full liability

traceable,”

, to Hilgartner’s infliction of willful and malicious injury non-

dischargeable under the terms of § 523(a)(6).

1.

Against that background, we have little difficulty agreeing with the bankruptcy and

district courts that the $229,045 outstanding on the settlement agreement principal is non-

dischargeable under § 523(a)(6). Indeed, like those courts, we consider the issue squarely

resolved by Supreme Court precedent.

In Archer v. Warner,

(2003), the Supreme Court rejected an argument

nearly identical to Hilgartner’s. That case involved a debt under an agreement settling a

lawsuit for fraud. And while a debt for money obtained by fraud is excepted from

discharge, see

(a)(2)(A), the debtor argued – like Hilgartner here – that his

debt was dischargeable, because it was for breach of the settlement agreement rather than

for the underlying fraud. His settlement agreement, in other words, had “replaced” his

non-dischargeable debt for fraud with a dischargeable debt for breach of contract. Archer,

. The Supreme Court disagreed. The Bankruptcy Code, it explained,

required it to “look behind” the settlement “to determine whether it reflected settlement of”

an otherwise non-dischargeable claim.

. If it did, then the settlement debt was

also non-dischargeable, even though collection on that debt sounded in contract rather than

tort.

at 320–21.

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Archer understood itself to be “govern[ed]” by Brown v. Felsen,

(1979). Archer,

. Brown involved similar circumstances but featured a

consent decree rather than an out-of-court settlement. Archer, 538 U.S. at 319–21. That

made no difference, the Archer Court concluded: “A debt embodied in the settlement of a

fraud case ‘arises’ no less ‘out of’ the underlying fraud than a debt embodied in a stipulation

and consent decree.”

.

As Brown governed Archer, so Archer governs here: Hilgartner’s non-

dischargeable debt for “willful and malicious injury” may have been reduced to a

settlement agreement, but that does not “change[] the nature of the debt for dischargeability

purposes.”

.

Hilgartner gestures at two distinctions from Archer, but neither makes a difference.

First, Archer, as noted above, concerned a different subsection of § 523(a), excepting from

discharge “any debt . . . for money . . . to the extent obtained by . . . actual fraud.”

(a)(2)(A). But as the Supreme Court explained in Cohen,

the phrase “to the extent obtained by” does not speak to whether a particular debt is

traceable to or arises from fraud for purposes of dischargeability.

. Instead,

that inquiry is governed by the introductory words “debt for,”

at 219–20 – precisely the

same words that introduce § 523(a)(6)’s “willful and malicious injury” exception, subject

to the same broad reading. See id. at 220 (“Because each use of ‘debt for’ in § 523(a)

serves the identical function of introducing a category of nondischargeable debt, the

presumption that equivalent words have equivalent meaning when repeated in the same

statute has particular resonance here.” (internal citation omitted)). There is thus no textual

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basis for limiting Archer to the specific subsection under which it was decided. See In re

Detrano,

(2d Cir. 2003) (explaining that case arising under different

§ 523(a) exception to discharge is “nonetheless control[led]” by Archer).

Second, Hilgartner notes that the settlement agreement in Archer resolved an

existing lawsuit, while this settlement agreement preempted a lawsuit. See J.A. 70 (stating

that parties are entering agreement “[t]o avoid the time and expense of litigation”). Again,

the statutory question is whether debt embodied in a settlement agreement is “debt for” the

underlying tort claim, and whether the agreement comes before or after litigation has no

obvious bearing on that point. Indeed, the Supreme Court rejected just this sort of

technicality in Archer: There was no reason, the Court explained, why it would matter that

the debt at issue in Brown was reduced to a consent judgment while the debt at issue in

Archer was embodied in a settlement agreement; both debts arose out of fraud. Archer,

. By the same token, here, a debt embodied in a pre-suit settlement that

resolves a claim for willful and malicious injury “‘arises’ no less ‘out of’ the underlying

[tort] than a debt embodied” in a post-suit settlement.

What matters is the “true nature”

of the debt,

(quoting Brown,

), not the form of the legal instrument in

which it is reflected. 3

3 While courts rarely note any distinction between pre- and post-suit settlements in this context, it appears that they generally apply Archer to debts arising from both. See, e.g., In re Hathaway,

, 241–43 (Bankr. E.D. Va. 2007) (applying Archer to pre-suit settlement).

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Cases may arise where the absence of an underlying lawsuit makes it more difficult,

as a practical matter, for the creditor to demonstrate that a debt embodied in an agreement

is “for” willful or malicious injury or some other non-dischargeable claim. See In re Muhs,

(4th Cir. 2019) (creditor bears burden of proving non-dischargeability

by preponderance of the evidence). This is not such a case. The settlement agreement

itself answers any questions on that front: The debt is “for the pain, damage, and suffering”

Hilgartner caused Yagi in “altercation[s]” on two dates in 2010. J.A. 70. Because – as all

now agree – those altercations inflicted “willful and malicious injury,” Hilgartner cannot

discharge the debts arising therefrom.

2.

We turn now to the issue that divided the bankruptcy court and district court: the

dischargeability of what we are calling the “collection debts.” These are liabilities arising

from the terms of the settlement agreement and triggered by Yagi’s efforts to collect on

that agreement: interest on late payments and attorney’s fees incurred in enforcing the

agreement and contesting Hilgartner’s bankruptcy proceedings. We conclude that, like the

principal, these debts “aris[e] from” willful and malicious injury, Cohen,

,

and are therefore likewise non-dischargeable.

An initial clarification: The attorney’s fees incurred in executing the settlement

agreement – as opposed to collecting on it – are not in controversy. Those fees are not

dischargeable for two reasons. Most straightforwardly, the settlement agreement explicitly

absorbed the fees into the principal, J.A. 70–71, which, as explained above, is not

dischargeable. And in any event, Cohen establishes that attorney’s fees incurred in the

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creation of a non-dischargeable debt are also non-dischargeable, as part of the “full liability

traceable” to the underlying injury. Cohen,

.

What is disputed here are the attorney’s fees incurred in collecting on the settlement

agreement and contesting Hilgartner’s bankruptcy proceedings. The bankruptcy court, as

noted above, held these debts dischargeable because, in its view, they arose not “directly”

from the assaults but rather “came into being years later when the parties signed the

Settlement Agreement.” J.A. 143–44. And the same was true, it held, with respect to the

interest that accumulated when Hilgartner paid his installments late.

Like the district court, we disagree. And like the district court, we think the Supreme

Court’s decision in Cohen points toward the opposite result. In Cohen, the Court held that

treble damages from “actual fraud” – and attorney’s fees incurred in litigating the fraud –

are non-dischargeable under § 523(a)(2)(A)’s exception for “debt for” money obtained

through such fraud. See

;

(a)(2)(A). That case establishes

two propositions important to this case.

First, Cohen forecloses any argument that only the portion of Hilgartner’s debt

commensurate with the “willful and malicious injury” he inflicted – the “restitutionary”

portion – is non-dischargeable as “debt for” that injury.

(rejecting debtor’s

effort to “impose[] a restitutionary ceiling on the extent to which [his] liability for fraud is

nondischargeable”). Instead, Cohen holds that § 523(a)’s exceptions may reach punitive

and other related ancillary debts. “Once it is established that specific money” is “for” fraud,

willful and malicious injury, or other conduct excepted under § 523(a), then “‘any debt’

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arising” from the injury – not only the part of the debt that makes the victim whole – is

non-dischargeable.

.

Second, Cohen reaches this result through a “broad” reading of the relevant statutory

text: the introductory phrase “debt for.” See In re Pleasants,

(4th Cir.

2000). Those words, Cohen instructs, should not be read narrowly or in a purely

“restitutionary sense”; instead, they “connot[e] broadly any liability arising from the

specified object” – fraud, willful and malicious injury, or the like.

(emphasis added). As we explained at the outset, the Supreme Court spoke here in

decidedly expansive terms, equating “debt for” with “‘debt as a result of,’ ‘debt with

respect to,’ debt by reason of,’ and the like.”

Any debt “arising from” or incurred “on

account of” an excepted ground qualifies as “debt for” that ground under § 523(a). See id.

The collection debts here fit that description. Like the principal owed under the

settlement agreement, these debts, too, were incurred “as a result of” or “on account of”

Hilgartner’s assaults on Yagi. But for the assaults, there would have been no settlement

agreement and no collection debt. And, critically, the entire settlement “arose from” the

same willful and malicious injuries. As the district court explained, both the attorney’s

fees and the late-payment interest are mechanisms – for which the parties bargained – to

enforce and collect on the non-dischargeable principal. Hilgartner, 643 B.R. at 125. In

effect, Yagi agreed to release her claim for willful and malicious injury if Hilgartner paid

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the principal and the costs of collecting it; the principal and the collection debts are

“inextricably linked.” Id.

The bankruptcy court reasoned that the collection debts “are not fairly traceable to

the injuries” because they result only from “the Settlement Agreement” rather than

“flow[ing] directly from the injuries sustained.” J.A. 144. But that is the same logic

rejected by Archer when it held that a debt for money promised in a settlement agreement

could also be a “debt for” an underlying fraud and thus non-dischargeable under § 523(a).

See

. As Archer makes clear, a settlement agreement does not disrupt the

causal chain. Hilgartner’s collection debts, which “flow directly from [the] agreement for

the express purpose of enforcing its terms,” Hilgartner, 643 B.R. at 125, remain “traceable

to,” Cohen,

, the injury he inflicted on Yagi. The settlement simply

formalized a bargain – a bargain that envisioned compensation for injury and collection

alike – to resolve claims arising from willful and malicious injury. Under Archer and

Cohen, that is enough to make Hilgartner’s collection debts, like his principal debt, non-

dischargeable under § 523(a)(6). 4

Our conclusion aligns with the weight of authority, which, like the district court

here, treats any contrast between “fees spent to execute a settlement agreement” and “fees

4 As the district court recognized, Cohen of course does not create any independent right to attorney’s fees for collection on a non-dischargeable debt. Hilgartner, 643 B.R. at 124. Section 523(a) governs the dischargeability of debts, not their existence, and there must be an independent legal basis for any collection debts. See, e.g., Matter of Sheridan,

(7th Cir. 1997). Here, there is no dispute that the settlement agreement created the debts.

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spent to enforce that same agreement” as a “distinction without a difference.” Hilgartner,

643 B.R. at 125. For example, the Eighth Circuit adopted this approach – even pre-Cohen

– in a case with facts mirroring ours, where a contract granted “reasonable attorney’s fees”

to the party “prevailing in any matter arising under the contract documents.” In re Alport,

(8th Cir. 1998). In those circumstances, the court held, attorney’s

fees incurred in enforcing the contract “were properly included in the nondischargeable

debt . . . because attorney’s fees provided by contract, like accrued interest, can become

part of the debt.”

(citing In re Hunter,

, 1131 (8th Cir. 1985)). Likewise,

the Seventh Circuit explained that because “[a]ttorneys’ fees, no less than the principal and

interest, are the result of” the conduct excepting a debt from discharge, all those amounts

are non-dischargeable as “part of” the non-dischargeable debt. Mayer v. Spanel Int’l Ltd.,

(7th Cir. 1995). In our view, these cases – and others like them 5 – best

5 See TranSouth Fin. Corp. of Fla. v. Johnson,

, 1505–06 (11th Cir. 1991) (reasoning that “[o]nce a debt has been determined nondischargeable,” a creditor’s contractually guaranteed attorney’s fees incurred in “collect[ing]” that debt “are included as part of the nondischargeable debt”); In re Loder,

, 701 (11th Cir. 2020) (reiterating TransSouth’s holding); In re Florida,

(B.A.P. 9th Cir. 1994) (“costs of securing” payment of a debt for willful and malicious injury are non- dischargeable because they “have a direct and apparent genesis in the original claim”); In re Steward, No. 16-00479,

, at *3 (Bankr. D.D.C. Oct. 18, 2017) (“damages relating to collection of the nondischargeable debt” also non-dischargeable); In re French,

, 223–24 (Bankr. W.D. Ky. 2016) (per Cohen, the “debt associated with” the fraudulently obtained money “includes post judgment interest as well as Plaintiff’s costs, expenses, and fees, including reasonable attorney’s fees, incurred as the result of the enforcement of the agreement or collection of the indebtedness”); In re Wine,

, 445–46 (Bankr. D. Colo. 2016) (Cohen “quite definitively dictates that collection fees . . . arising from money fraudulently obtained are nondischargeable”); In re Hathaway, 364 B.R. at 248–50 (contractually awarded attorney’s fees “incurred in collecting the note” non-dischargeable under Cohen); In re Moen,

, 795–96 16 USCA4 Appeal: 22-1762 Doc: 36 Filed: 01/18/2024 Pg: 17 of 18

align with the text of § 523(a) and the Supreme Court’s decisions in Archer and Cohen,

and we follow their approach today. 6

B.

We turn finally and more briefly to a separate evidentiary challenge raised by

Hilgartner. At trial, the bankruptcy court permitted Yagi to introduce a chart listing the

due date of each installment payment owed under the settlement agreement, whether and

in what amount Hilgartner had paid, and the cumulative totals owed. Hilgartner argues

that the introduction of this chart violated Federal Rule of Evidence 1006, which permits

the use of such a chart only if the documents on which it is based are made available to the

other parties. See Fed. R. Evid. 1006; United States v. Janati,

, 272–73 (4th

Cir. 2004). We review this evidentiary dispute for abuse of discretion, Janati,

, and for two reasons, we find no reversible error here.

First, Hilgartner likely forfeited this objection by failing to raise it at trial before the

bankruptcy court. See Padilla v. Troxell,

, 177–78 (4th Cir. 2017). Hilgartner

objected repeatedly to other aspects of the chart, including whether Yagi had personal

knowledge of its contents. But “[a]n evidentiary objection on one basis is insufficient to

(B.A.P. 8th Cir. 1999) (explaining that Cohen confirms the holding of In re Alport,

(8th Cir. 1998)). 6 While Cohen’s language is broad, it is not unlimited. As the Ninth Circuit’s Bankruptcy Appellate Panel cautioned, “It may be that the relationship of ancillary to primary obligations can become so attenuated that it would be unreasonable to characterize them as integral to the original willful and malicious injury.” In re Florida,

. But we need not define those outer limits today because, whatever they are, the collection debts at issue here fall on the non-dischargeable side of the line.

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preserve an evidentiary objection on a different basis,” id. at 178, and Hilgartner never

objected on the ground that Yagi had failed to provide him the original documents on which

her chart was based. 7

And regardless, we are convinced that any error here was harmless. See United

States v. Wilkinson,

(4th Cir. 1998) (finding harmless an assumed Rule

1006 error in failing to offer original documentation for chart). The figures in Yagi’s chart

reflected only information to which Hilgartner had complete and ready access: the amounts

that left his own bank account as payments toward the principal under the settlement

agreement, and due dates and interest amounts that came straight from the settlement

agreement itself. See Hilgartner, 643 B.R. at 127. If Hilgartner wished to “test the

accuracy of the chart’s summarization,” in other words, he already had all the tools to do

so, see Janati,

(describing “obvious import” of Rule 1006’s disclosure

requirement) – and yet he produced no evidence to challenge any of the chart’s

calculations. In these circumstances, any disclosure error under Rule 1006 was harmless.

III.

For the reasons given above, the district court’s judgment is affirmed.

AFFIRMED

7 For the sake of clarity, we note that the bankruptcy court did sustain a Rule 1006 objection to a different exhibit. But neither that exhibit nor that objection bears on the question before us.

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