Court says woman can’t sell $32,000 ring after breaking off engagement

By Shelby Myers

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    BALDWIN CO, Alabama (WALA) — It’s an unusual case out of Baldwin County.

A bride-to-be ran off with her engagement ring after she broke off her relationship, court documents said.

According to those documents, the woman sold the diamond ring for about a third of its cost.

Her ex-fiancé wants his money back and the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals is siding with him.

So in Alabama, what happens when the someone calls off an engagement?

Who gets the diamond ring? Is it a gift or must it be returned to the one proposing?

It seems Alabama courts are still trying to figure that one out.

According to court records, on Christmas Eve 2018, a man proposed to his girlfriend with a ring said to be valued at $32,000. His girlfriend accepted, but sometime in 2019, she called off the relationship.

In court documents, it said two months later, he asked for the ring back but she refused. According to the documents, first, she said she tossed it into the intracoastal waterway, then she admitted to selling it for $10,000.

The Baldwin County Circuit Court ruled that the man gave her the ring as a Christmas present and put no conditions on his gift, so she didn’t have to return it.

But the Alabama Court of Appeals wants that ruling vacated. The appeals court said the woman was “unjustly enriched at his expense” since she refused to return the engagement ring or its value and the gift was conditioned on marriage which didn’t happen.

FOX10 News reached out to both parties but did not get a comment back.

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