Conditional Gifts
However, the majority of courts also consider such a gift to be a conditional one. That means that, until some future event occurs, the gift isn't final; if that event does not occur, then the donor has the right to get the gift back. In real life, many parents use this concept by, for example, giving a teenage daughter the keys to the family car, on the condition that she maintain a certain grade point average for a specified period of time. If she doesn't make the grade, the keys must be returned.
Women who want to keep their engagement rings often argue that the condition needed to make the engagement ring a final gift is simply the acceptance of the proposal of marriage, not the completion of the marriage ceremony. That way, if the engagement is broken, the ring remains her property.
However, this argument often loses. The majority of courts find that the gift of an engagement ring contains an implied condition of marriage; acceptance of the proposal is not the underlying "deal." Absent some other understanding -- say, that the ring is merely a memento of a great trip to Hawaii -- most courts look at engagement rings as conditional gifts given in contemplation of marriage:
The Supreme Court of Montana has come down on the opposite side of this fence, rejecting the conditional gift theory and declaring that an engagement ring is an unconditional, completed gift. Ex-fiances in that western state are unlikely to get help from the courts if they want to get an engagement ring back. Albinger v. Harris, 2002 WL 1226858 (Mont. 2002).