By Jedidiah McKeehan
An engagement ends badly. The wedding is canceled, the families are upset, and then someone asks the question that can turn an emotional breakup into a property dispute: who gets the ring?
In Tennessee, an engagement ring is generally treated as a conditional gift. The ring is given with an implied condition that the couple will actually get married. If the marriage does not happen, the condition was never completed.
The Tennessee Court of Appeals addressed this issue in the 2007 case of Crippen v. Campbell. The court held that if the marriage does not occur, ownership of the ring never fully passes to the person who received it, and the person who gave the ring is entitled to have it returned.
What if the person who bought the ring is also the person who called off the wedding? What if that person cheated or otherwise caused the breakup? Under the rule adopted in Crippen, fault does not control the answer. The court did not want every dispute over an engagement ring to become a trial about who ruined the relationship. If the wedding does not happen, the ring goes back to the person who gave it.
The answer changes once the couple gets married. At that point, the condition has been satisfied, and the engagement ring becomes a completed gift. Tennessee courts have treated the ring as the recipient’s separate property in a later divorce, rather than an asset that must be divided between the spouses.
Of course, unusual facts can create unusual results. There may be a dispute about whether the jewelry was really an engagement ring, whether both people paid for it, or whether there was a separate written agreement about a family heirloom. If someone sells, loses, or refuses to return the ring, the fight may shift from return of the ring to payment of its value.
So the basic Tennessee rule is fairly clean. No marriage means the engagement ring goes back to the giver. Marriage means the gift is complete and the ring belongs to the person who received it.
Jedidiah McKeehan is an attorney practicing in Knox County and surrounding counties. He works in many areas, including family law, criminal, and personal injury. Visit attorney-knoxville.com for more information about this legal issue and other legal issues.
