An Ontario Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a woman who sought to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars from her younger brother, ruling that the substantial sum was a gift and not a loan1. The decision, released on September 3, 2025, brings a close to a bitter family dispute between Stephanie Tillger and her brother, Christopher Figliano, over funds transferred during a turbulent period in Ms. Tillger’s life. Justice M.T. Doi concluded that Mr. Figliano had successfully proven his sister intended to give him the money gratuitously to help him purchase a home following his marital separation.
The case traces its origins to a catastrophic motor vehicle accident in October 2000 that left Ms. Tillger with life altering injuries. As a passenger in a convertible, she sustained a broken skull, vision and hearing loss, and long term back injuries. The court heard that she developed an addiction to prescription painkillers, which she later overcame, but continued to suffer from short term memory loss, poor impulse control, and anger management issues. Her injuries ultimately prevented her from running her equestrian business and maintaining other employment. A subsequent personal injury lawsuit resulted in a significant structured settlement, which included monthly annuity payments of more than $24,000 and a lump sum payment of $700,000 that she received on May 18, 2018.
By late 2017, Ms. Tillger was facing profound personal challenges, including postpartum depression and heavy alcohol use. Her behaviour began to strain her marriage and other family relationships. In the spring of 2018, her life entered a particularly chaotic phase. Following a domestic incident in April, she was arrested, charged with assault, and released on conditions that she not attend the family home. Just over a month later, on May 25, 2018, she was arrested again after driving to the home, causing damage to the property, and vandalizing her husband’s car. Three days later, she was released on bail, with her brother, Christopher Figliano, acting as her surety.
During this period, Mr. Figliano was one of the few family members who remained close to his sister. He encouraged her to seek treatment for her addictions, but she refused. The court heard testimony that Ms. Tillger continued to drink heavily and use marijuana while on bail. Her conduct eventually led her brother and several others to withdraw as sureties, and she subsequently spent multiple periods in custody. Ms. Tillger herself testified that her memory of this time was hazy due to her brain injury, heavy drinking, and marijuana use. It was against this backdrop that the contentious transfer of funds occurred.
The siblings presented starkly different accounts of the $700,000 transfer. Ms. Tillger testified that her brother, aware of her recent settlement, approached her for a loan to buy a house for himself and his children after separating from his wife. She claimed she agreed to lend him the money with the expectation that they would formalize the arrangement with a loan agreement at a later date.
Mr. Figliano told a different story. He testified that his sister approached him with an unsolicited and generous offer. He said she told him she was gifting him an advance on his inheritance, which she intended to leave him in her will, so he could purchase a home. He maintained she gave him the money freely, out of love and a desire to help him during a difficult time, with no expectation of repayment. The court noted that this contrasted sharply with a previous occasion when Mr. Figliano had borrowed $40,000 from his sister to renovate a garage. That transaction was documented in a written loan agreement, which he fully repaid. For the $700,000, no such document was ever created or discussed.
The funds were transferred in two installments. On May 18, 2018, the same day Ms. Tillger received her settlement funds, she and her brother went to her bank, and she transferred $200,000 to him. The remaining $500,000 was transferred ten days later, on May 28, 2018, the day Mr. Figliano acted as her surety to secure her release from custody. Their recollections of that day diverged significantly. Ms. Tillger claimed she was intoxicated, having smoked marijuana after being released, when she made the transfer. Mr. Figliano testified that she was sober, having spent the previous few days in custody without access to drugs or alcohol, and that she did not consume any substances before they went to the bank. Mr. Figliano used the combined $700,000 to purchase his new home.
In assessing the conflicting evidence, Justice Doi relied heavily on the testimony of independent witnesses, which ultimately supported Mr. Figliano’s version of events. A former coworker of Mr. Figliano testified that, at the time the transfers occurred in 2018, Mr. Figliano told him that his sister was gifting him a substantial amount of money as an early inheritance to buy a house. The coworker recalled the conversation vividly because of the extraordinary generosity of the gift. The judge found this evidence, a statement made before any dispute arose, to be particularly persuasive.
Further corroboration came from Mr. Figliano’s former spouse. She testified that during the same period in May or June 2018, Ms. Tillger had made a similar unsolicited offer to her. As the former spouse was struggling to find a way to remain in the matrimonial home with her children, Ms. Tillger offered to gift her a large sum of money, also framing it as an early inheritance. The former spouse was uncomfortable with the offer and declined the gift. Instead, she accepted a $100,000 loan from Ms. Tillger, for which they verbally agreed on flexible repayment terms. The court heard that Ms. Tillger later sued the former spouse for immediate repayment of that loan, a matter that was settled out of court. Justice Doi found the former spouse’s testimony about the initial gift offer to be consistent with Mr. Figliano’s account and indicative of Ms. Tillger’s generous state of mind at the time.
Sometime after providing the funds, Ms. Tillger’s financial outlook appeared to change. In text messages from September 2019, she expressed anxiety about the potential costs of her own marital separation. It was around this time that she began demanding repayment from her brother. When he refused, citing his belief that the money was a gift, she initiated her lawsuit in November 2021.
Before ruling on the central issue, the court first addressed Mr. Figliano’s argument that the lawsuit was filed too late. Justice Doi found the action was not barred by the two year limitation period. The judge reasoned that for a demand loan, the clock does not start ticking until a demand for repayment is made. Since the first demand was made in September 2019, the lawsuit, filed in late 2021, was commenced in time, especially after accounting for the suspension of limitation periods during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On the main question of whether the transfer was a gift or a loan, the judge explained the legal principle of a “resulting trust”. In law, when money is transferred without payment in return, it is presumed to be held in trust for the original owner unless the recipient can prove it was intended as a gift. Justice Doi found that Mr. Figliano had met this burden with clear and convincing evidence. The judge found Mr. Figliano and his witnesses to be credible, while noting that Ms. Tillger’s memory of the events was often “foggy or unclear”. The lack of any loan agreement, the corroborating testimony from the coworker and the ex-wife, the close sibling relationship at the time, and Ms. Tillger’s significant financial capacity to make such a gift all pointed toward a donative intent.
The court also dismissed Ms. Tillger’s alternative claims of unjust enrichment and equitable fraud. The unjust enrichment claim failed because a gift provides a valid legal reason for the transfer, meaning it is not unjust for the recipient to keep it. The claim of equitable fraud, which addresses unconscionable conduct, was also rejected. Justice Doi found no evidence that Ms. Tillger was legally incapacitated or so vulnerable that she could not understand the consequences of her actions. Given her substantial wealth, including a lifelong income of nearly $300,000 per year from her settlement annuities alone, the court concluded that it was not unconscionable for her brother to retain the funds she had gifted him.
The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed. The parties have 20 days to make submissions on legal costs if they cannot reach an agreement on their own.
