Breaking off an engagement is never easy. In addition to the tumultuous emotions that usually accompany a breakup, there are a number of logistical issues to sort out, such as living arrangements, wedding payments and, in the case of one Massachusetts couple, who gets to keep the $70,000 engagement ring.

According to court documents, Bruce Johnson proposed to his then-girlfriend Caroline Settino on August 24, 2017, at the Wequassett Resort and Golf Club in Harwich, Massachusetts, with a $70,000 engagement ring he purchased at Tiffany’s. The newly engaged couple immediately began planning their big day, and the groom subsequently purchased two wedding bands at Tiffany’s for just under $4,000.

However, Johnson’s engagement bliss was short-lived. He says warning signs appeared when he began to be verbally abused by his fiancée. According to court documents, Settino called him “an idiot,” “adjusted his clothes,” and “did not appreciate (his) accomplishments.” In November 2017, after a particularly nasty argument in which the bride claimed “she was a good-looking woman and could have a man any time she wanted,” Johnson saw messages on her phone suggesting she was having an affair. (Settino later denied having had any extramarital affairs, saying the man she was texting was “her best friend.”) For Johnson, however, the trust was broken and he decided to call off the engagement just weeks later. This was just the beginning of the end for the former couple, as Johnson soon launched a legal battle to regain ownership of the expensive ring.

In September 2021, the Brockton Superior Court found Johnson liable for the dissolution of the engagement, finding that the engagement ring (and a wedding band) belonged to Settino. (The trial court stated that he could keep the wedding band he had purchased.) However, on July 28, 2022, the ex-groom decided to appeal the trial court’s decision and award the expensive ring to his former fiancée. Less than a year later, on March 1, 2023, the Massachusetts Court of Appeals overturned the lower court’s decision and awarded the ring and wedding band to Johnson, ruling that the evidence presented at the first trial was “insufficient to support a finding that the plaintiff was ‘at fault’ for the parties’ separation.”

The crux of the case is the court’s approach to fault. In the state of Massachusetts, the person who gets to keep the ring is usually judged based on who was “at fault” for breaking off the engagement. According to the Journal of the American Bar Associationthe majority of states hold that a ring is a conditional gift that must be returned to the buyer after the engagement ends, regardless of who was at fault. This case (and the larger question) now goes to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on September 6. In her filed brief, Settino argues that there should be no “conditional gift theory” when it comes to engagement rings. In her eyes, the ring, a gift, should remain her property. But her former groom disagrees. The decision – and the owner of the Tiffany ring – is now in the hands of the state’s highest court.