Massachusetts’s highest court reversed a longstanding ruling by saying an engagement ring must be returned to the buyer if the wedding falls through.

The ruling marks a departure from a decades-old state rule requiring courts to assess who was responsible for a breakup.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has ruled that a woman must return her $70,000 Tiffany & Co. engagement ring after her fiancé canceled their wedding. This decision ends a decades-long legal debate in Massachusetts over who keeps the engagement ring when a relationship ends.

Massachusetts' top court on Friday ruled that a would-be bride must return a $70,000 engagement ring from Tiffany & Co to her former fiancé in a decision that ended 65 years of courts in the New England state trying to sort through who is to blame when a relationship falls apart.

Who gets to keep an engagement ring if a wedding is called off? That’s what the highest court in Massachusetts was asked to decide with a $70,000 ring at the center of the dispute.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has overturned a 65-year-old rule that required judges to identify and give engagement rings to the wronged party in a break-up. “More than six decades ago, we recognized that an antenuptial ring generally is understood to be a conditional gift and determined that the donor may recover the ring

Massachusetts’ highest court reversed a longstanding ruling, saying an engagement ring must be returned if the wedding falls through. After a year of dating that included trips to the US Virgin Islands and Italy,

The ruling puts a definitive end to a six-decade-old state rule that required judges to try to identify who was to blame for the end of the relationship.