New York Divorce Report - New York's Divorce and Family Law Blog

It is well established in New York, that when an engagement is broken, the engagement ring must be returned to the groom.  The exception to this rule is when the man is already married, the intended bride gets to keep the ring.   

Recently, a New York court answered the question what happens to an engagement ring when it is the woman who is already married and the “engagement” is broken.

In the case Lipschutz v. Kiderman, the appellate court explained that:

 where a party gives an engagement gift to another with knowledge that an impediment to a lawful marriage exists, whether the impediment is on the part of the donor or the recipient, no action will lie to compel a return of the property on the ground that the marriage did not take place

So, if a man gives a woman a ring, knowing that she is married, and the parties fail to wed, then the woman may keep the ring.

An engagement ring is a conditional gift, made in contemplation of marriage.  If the marriage occurs, the condition has been satisfied and the gift is complete; the recipient, generally the woman, gets to keep the ring.   If the marriage does not take place, the condition has not been satisfied, and the ring need be returned. 

However, if someone is already married at the time of the engagement, they cannot legally enter into a contract to marry.   In many of the reported cases, it is the prospective groom who gives an engagement ring while married to another woman.  Whether or not the marriage takes place, his fiancé is legally entitled to keep the engagement ring. 

In the Lischutz case, it was the woman who was married at the time of the engagement.  The Court said that if the prospective groom actually knew this his fiancé was married and could not contract to marry, when he gave her the ring, she would get to keep it.   If he did not know she was married, he would be entitled to the return of the ring.

The bar against a recovery of the engagement ring “is intended to protect an innocent party, not one aware of the other’s disability to contract a marriage at the time of the engagement.” 

The Wall Street Journal in an article written by Mary Pilon detailed some of the reasons couples enter into prenuptial agreements.

In the article, I was quoted for having noticed a trend in my practice. In conversations with many of my younger clients, I observed that often they did not want a pre-nuptial agreement to protect assets they had already acquired-often they had yet to acquire anything of value, but instead, to protect their prospective inheritance. In many cases they were being dictated to by their parents and told that they had to obtain a pre-nuptial agreement.

In its most basic form, a pre-nuptial agreements identifies what is marital property, which would be subject to equitable distribution if the parties later divorce, and what is separate property, which would be immune from their spouse’s claims.

Property inherited or acquired by gift is separate property. However, money is fungible and memories of the source of the funds are conveniently fleeting.

As pointed out in the Divorce Analysis Blog:

A prenuptial agreement is useful in establishing the parties individual pre-marital wealth levels. While this may seem mundane ( I mean, who doesn’t know their net worth when they say “I do”?), you would be how surprised how time colors the memory of wealth. Like the old “fishing story” beliefs about net worth can change dramatically with time.

One of the most useful aspects of the prenuptial agreement is that it clearly defines what is separate property, where appropriate, values the separate property and delineates the circumstances where separate property can be converted to marital property.

Parents leaving sizeable estates to their children may require the children to obtain pre-nups to ensure that however their children use their estates, the funds will for all purposes remain a separate asset and otherwise immune from a spouse’s claim in the event the marriage ends in divorce.