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

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.

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

Who gets to keep an engagement ring if a romance turns sour and the wedding is called off? That’s what the highest court in Massachusetts was asked to

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 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.

That’s what the highest court in Massachusetts was asked to decide with a $70,000 ring at the center of the dispute. The court ultimately ruled Friday that an engagement ring must be returned to the person who purchased it,