Would-be Bride Must Return $70,000 Ring
November 13, 24
(IDEX Online) - A court in the US has ordered a would-be bride to hand back her $70,000 diamond engagement ring, in a landmark "no fault" ruling.
The judges decided that a ring is a conditional gift that must be returned if the wedding doesn't take place, regardless of who is to blame.
Bruce Johnson, 67, presented Caroline Settino, 59, with the Tiffany & Co ring in August 2017, but called off the wedding later that year.
He suspected she was having an affair - a claim she denies - and said she did not support him during a battle with prostate cancer.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled last Friday (8 November) that the ring had been a conditional gift, and that if - for whatever reason - the wedding didn't take place, it should be returned.
It reverses the "fault-based" position held by courts in Massachusetts state for the last 65 years.
They would only order the return of the ring if the giver was deemed to be not at fault for the wedding not taking place.
Six judges unanimously reached the decision. Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt cited the "near universal understanding of engagement rings as gifts inherently conditioned on a subsequent marriage," overturning an earlier ruling by a lower court that Settino should keep the ring.
"We now join the modern trend adopted by the majority of jurisdictions that have considered the issue and retire the concept of fault in this context; where, as here, the planned wedding does not ensue and the engagement is ended, the engagement ring must be returned to the donor regardless of fault," she wrote.
File pic of a Tiffany engagement ring.