If Things Fall Apart, Who Gets the Ring?

[snopes]

When an engaged couple breaks up, does the ring go back to the one who bought it? Or does it remain in the hands — and possibly on the hand — of the recipient, especially if she was the one spurned?

Though a seemingly inconsequential issue when measured against the prospect of an unhappy marriage, the conflict over the ring has led couples to court.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/fa...s/05field.html

[PointySextant]

I think the legal issues here are probably pretty ill defined.

If you give someone something as a gift, you are going to have a hard time recovering it in a court of law, but then the question is is a wedding ring a gift or a contractual item bound up in the success of the marriage and therefore is the right to retain it dependant on the marriage not falling apart?

I think the moral issue is really one you have to decide for yourself, but legally speaking, in my opinion based on the nature of marriage, due to the existing legal precedent of prenuptial agreements concerning gifts, assets, and inheritance, I think it is fair to say that unless a contract is signed prior to legal commingling of assets that marriage is, the ring is just one more piece to be decided on during the divorce proceedings. Both of them.

Ultimately I think this issue will, and should, be decided in divorce court and not in a civil suit.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by PointySextant

I think the legal issues here are probably pretty ill defined. If you give someone something as a gift, you are going to have a hard time recovering it in a court of law, but then the question is is a wedding ring a gift or a contractual item bound up in the success of the marriage and therefore is the right to retain it dependant on the marriage not falling apart?

The article is about engagement rings, not wedding rings. There are significantly different contractual issues involved with the former.

- snopes

[PointySextant]

Originally Posted by snopes

The article is about engagement rings, not wedding rings.

- snopes

Eeesh. You're right I misread it. I apologize.

That makes it a good deal simpler. If he gave it to her, or left it in her possession, it is a gift. The only justification he can seek to recover it by is that he never intended for her to keep it in the first place, i.e. there was another ring on the way. But simply saying things didn't work out so I want my gifts back is not a sound legal argument. Now if she hasn't paid taxes on it yet, he might have a chance of recovering it on the grounds that she never actually took legal possession of it, but I'm willing to bet he paid the taxes himself. It ultimately comes down to how the court chooses to define legal possession.

The issue of his having given it as a gift can't be argued with, as he did give the ring and didn't seek to have it returned within a reasonable amount of time. The issue is how one defines possession, i.e. physical ownership or taking on the role of legal custodian for the possession, i.e. paying the taxes, filing papers and so on. And as far as I am aware, there is no single clear legal precedent on the issue of possession in so far as the definition of gifts goes, but I could be wrong.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by PointySextant

That makes it a good deal simpler. If he gave it to her, or left it in her possession, it is a gift. The only justification he can seek to recover it by is that he never intended for her to keep it in the first place, i.e. there was another ring on the way. But simply saying things didn't work out so I want my gifts back is not a sound legal argument.

The notion that an engagement ring is a conditional gift which can be reclaimed by the giver if the conditions are not met is in fact a sound legal argument. As the article noted: "Chivalry aside, in recent years courts have almost always held that the ring goes back to the buyer, no matter the circumstances."

- snopes

[Embra]

Interesting.

My granny doesn't have an engagement ring because she gave it back to my grandfather on breaking their first engagement. When they got engaged again, he said "no ring for you this time!" so she only has a wedding band.

An engagement ring is a gift, but there is some significance in the unequal nature of the present: women don't traditionally give their husbands-to-be a gift worth hundred of pounds just to signify that fact.

So I have some sympathy for the argument that it is a "conditional gift": if that makes it sound mercenary then reflect on the reason the extraordinarily valuable ring is only given in one direction...

[Elkhound]

Here is a Findlaw Writ column discussing the matter.

[snopes]

A man wants the courts to answer that age-old question: If the wedding is called off, does the man get back the engagement ring?

Bryan Rosen thinks so, and he has filed suit in Superior Court against his former intended, Daniela Marcoccia, demanding that she return the $25,000 diamond ring he gave her when he proposed.

http://www.connpost.com/ci_11015096

[Eddylizard]

It's always been my understanding, morally if not legally that the party who broke off the engagement should cede the ring to the other, regardless of who bought it.

Mind you I don't really move in the kind of circles where nearly $250K rings are considered normal.

[Beachlife!]

Originally Posted by Eddylizard

It's always been my understanding, morally if not legally that the party who broke off the engagement should cede the ring to the other, regardless of who bought it.

Mind you I don't really move in the kind of circles where nearly $250K rings are considered normal.

That's the general rule, though here some states of specific laws regrding what happens with engagement rings.

Regardless, it gets a bit iffy when the ring is given on a birthday or holiday.

[Barbara]

Originally Posted by Beachlife!

Regardless, it gets a bit iffy when the ring is given on a birthday or holiday.

Not to a good lawyer, it doesn't. If the person the ring was given to afterwards presented it to various folks as her engagement ring, that's that - the question of the intent of the gift has been settled, at least as far as the legal system is concerned. If, however, she told people it was "What John gave me for Christmas," that too is also that - the ring would therefore be regarded by the courts as an unencumbered gift.

While normally a gift is a gift, and you don't get it back, engagement rings are treated by the legal system as "conditional gifts," which puts them into a special class of chattel that reverts to the giftor if the condition inherent to the gift was not met. Another sort of common conditional gift are wedding presents - if the two people they were given to don't get married, the gifts revert to their giftors; they are not kept by either of the folks who were planning to get hitched but didn't.