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Another State Takes No-Fault Approach to Engagement Ring Disputes

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The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (that state’s highest court) required a woman to return an engagement ring given to her by her ex-fiancé, who broke up with her after coming to suspect that she was being unfaithful to him. The case, Johnson v. Settino, Case No. SJC-13555 (Mass. Nov. 8, 2024), breaks with 65 years of precedent in that state allowing the donor of the engagement ring to recover only if found not to have been at fault for the end of the relationship. Therefore, whether the plaintiff (former) husband-to-be was right or wrong about the affair, his ex-fiancée had to give the ring, valued at appx. $70,000, back.

A number of factors drove the court’s decision. For instance, it noted the difficulty, long recognized by many courts, of allocating fault for a break-up. Additionally, there is a dissonance between recognizing an engagement as the final evaluation period that couples have to assess compatibility before making things official yet punishing a party for making use of that opportunity and coming to the conclusion that they should not marry (and thereby avoiding what would likely be a doomed union). The court also considered that the decline in considerations of fault represented by both the disfavored status of breach of contract to marry claims and the rise of no-fault divorce statutes suggested that this area of law should not focus on fault. The court therefore held that it was time to change Massachusetts law. With fault no longer a relevant factor, the court determined that what controlled were the ideas that the engagement ring is a conditional gift and, if that condition—the marriage of the parties—does not come to pass, the gift should be returned. This decision now brings Massachusetts law in line with many other states.

The law in Arkansas is not so clear. There does not appear to be an Arkansas appellate case addressing the return of engagement rings. Indeed, a 2012 case that seemed poised to address the question was dismissed due to a procedural issue. See Wilkinson v. Smith, 2012 Ark. App. 604. While knowing the status of the cause of action for breach of contract to marry might provide some guidance, Arkansas appellate courts do not seem to have meaningfully addressed such a claim in close to a century. See, e.g., King v. Goode, 183 Ark. 638 (1931); Davie v. Padgett, 117 Ark. 544 (1915). It simply is not clear what a modern court would do. But see Howard W. Brill, 1 Arkansas Law Of Damages § 21:1 (leading treatise opining that breach of contract to marry claims and for recovery of engagement rings are cognizable under Arkansas law).

This remains an interesting, if rarely litigated, area of the law. The opinion in Johnson v. Settino can be found here.