[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-10819 ____________________

In re: DONALD H. BAILEY Debtor. ________________________________________ KAI HANSJURGENS, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus DONALD H. BAILEY,

Defendant-Appellee. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 4:21-cv-00105-RSB-CLR, USCA11 Case: 22-10819 Document: 62-1 Date Filed: 01/12/2024 Page: 2 of 22

2 Opinion of the Court 22-10819

Bkcy No. 4:07-bk-41381-EJC ____________________

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and ROSENBAUM and ABUDU, Circuit Judges. ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge: Baseball Hall of Famer Frank Robinson famously said that “[c]lose only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.” 1 To that list we add one more thing: close—as long as it’s close enough to qualify as “substantial compliance”—also counts when it comes to following a state’s rules for reviving a judgment in federal court un- der Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 69(a). More than a decade ago, Appellee Donald Bailey obtained a bankruptcy judgment against Appellant Kai Hansjurgens for tor- tious interference with contract. That judgment included punitive damages based on Hansjurgens’s “malice and intent to injure” and “cavalier attitude toward [his] duties as [a] litigant[].” Bailey v. Hako- Med USA, Inc., No. 09-4002, at 8–9 (Bankr. S.D. Ga. Apr. 7, 2011). Hansjurgens has not paid Bailey a cent. Georgia state law gave Bailey ten years to collect. But before Bailey’s judgment expired irretrievably, Bailey filed—and the bank- ruptcy court granted—a motion to revive that judgment. Hansjur- gens does not dispute that the underlying judgment is valid, but he

1 Nick Acocella, More Info on Frank Robinson, ESPN CLASSIC (last visited Jan. 12,

2024), https://www.espn.com/classic/000728frankrobinsonadd.html [https://perma.cc/5ATF-87HL]. USCA11 Case: 22-10819 Document: 62-1 Date Filed: 01/12/2024 Page: 3 of 22

22-10819 Opinion of the Court 3

still seeks to keep his streak of dodging payment intact. This time, Hansjurgens claims that Bailey didn’t strictly comply with Georgia state-law procedures to revive his judgment. But the district court found—and Bailey argues on appeal—that Bailey did enough to sat- isfy the Georgia judgment-revival procedure under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 69(a). We agree. So after careful consideration, and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm. I. BACKGROUND

A. Original Bankruptcy Proceedings and Related Appeals

Bailey and Hansjurgens’s dispute originated with a business arrangement. Bailey leased medical equipment to physicians. To obtain some of his leasing inventory, Bailey entered into a distrib- utorship agreement with Hansjurgens and his medical device com- pany Hako-Med USA, Inc. Bailey v. Hako-Med USA, Inc. (In re Bai- ley), 2010 Bankr. LEXIS 6300, at *2 (