BOSTON – A woman must have one $70,000 engagement ring to her former fiancé following a ruling Friday from the Massachusetts Supreme Court.
The judges also overturned a rule requiring judges to decide who is guilty of ending an engagement.
The engagement
Bruce Johnson and Caroline Settino were briefly engaged in 2017. Johnson bought an engagement ring at Tiffany’s in Boston for more than $70,000. He then proposed to her on Cape Cod.
They broke up a short time later. Johnson accused Settino of being verbally abusive, failing to accompany him to cancer treatments and having an affair. Johnson claimed he found a text message to a man on Settino’s phone that said, “My Bruce will be in Connecticut for three days.” I need some playing time.” Settino denied having an affair and said the man she texted was just a friend.
The ring battle
A judge initially ruled in Settino’s favor, saying Johnson was guilty of calling off the engagement and that she could keep the ring. Johnson appealed the decision and a Massachusetts Court of Appeals ruled in his favor.
The court of appeal said the SJC should consider whether Massachusetts should follow other states where engagement rings are returned to the giver if an engagement is called off, regardless of who is at fault.
Flawless Appointments in Massachusetts
The SJC in turn overturned the 65-year-old rule, which required judges to decide whose fault it was for ending the engagement and then award the ring to the other party.
“We now join the modern trend adopted by the majority of jurisdictions that have considered this issue and abandon the concept of fault in this context; where, as here, the planned wedding does not take place and the engagement is terminated, the engagement ring must be returned to the donor regardless of fault,” Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt wrote in the decision.
“…the only relevant inquiry in cases of conditional engagement gifts is whether the condition under which the gift was made – that is, the wedding ceremony – did not take place. If the planned marriage does not materialize, the engagement cannot take place. The gift must are returned to the donor,” she continued.
