A woman must repay her ex-lover $96,000 pre and post-judgment interest and litigation costs, because she failed to prove in court that the money her ex-lover transferred to her was a gift.
The plaintiff, Peter Walker, who was married at the time, had an affair with the defendant, Ms. Maryam Farsijani. Their tryst lasted around 5 months.
During their relationship, Mr. Walker transferred approximately $96,000 to Ms. Farsijani. When the affair was over, Mr. Walker asked for it back. When Ms. Farijani refused, he sued her. Ms. Farsijani defended the case alleging that the transfers were gifts.
Ms. Farsijani was not a sympathetic witness. When the relationship ended she told Mr. Walker that she was pregnant and demanded $1.2 million – or she would cause “trouble” in his life.
As Ms. Farijani did not fall into the categories where there is a presumption of gift, the onus was on her to prove that Mr. Walker had intended to gift her the funds.
Justice Leibovich said “If the onus was on the plaintiff (Mr. Walker), I would have found that the transfers were loans. But the onus is on the defendant to show that these transfers were gifts.
Ms. Farsijani relied heavily on text messages – as not a single message between them mentioned the transfers being a loan. The Judge, however, looked beyond the texts and rejected Ms. Farijani’s testimony that the transfers were gifts citing significant concerns with her credibility.
Testimony
Ms. Farsijani appeared to be a difficult witness, as she did not answer questions directly and would interrupt frequently. Ms. Farsijani appeared to have faked a pregnancy, and use the fake pregnancy to extort Mr. Walker.
Ms. Farsijani’s text messages said “I’m driving back from the doctor. Everything is beautiful. She made a file for me. The next visit in three weeks. She did a lots of test.” Ms. Farsijani admitted at trial, however, that she never went to the doctor and the texts about visiting her doctor was a lie.
Ms. Farsijani also made false allegations of abuse. There was no proof or evidence in any police report or in the text messages that Ms. Farsijani was assaulted by Mr. Walker.
Justice Leibovich said “I do not believe the defendant. In my view, she made up this serious allegation in attempt to curry sympathy.”
The moral to the story – if you are going to transfer funds in the context of an affair – document them. Even worse than the loss of funds for Ms. Farsijani is that a court published this story.
The full decision of the Court’s judgment is available here.
