Jian Tang and Robert Campbell met in May 2016 on Match.com., an online dating site. Things appear to have progressed nicely. They began to live together and in March 2017, Campbell came forth with a proposal of marriage. Not in a small way either, based on the precedential Superior Court case published on July 13. He produced not just a ring with his invitation to marriage but a diamond necklace and earrings. Ms. Tang said “Yes” and started to wear her new found jewelry. The wedding was scheduled for May 2018.
This offer to get hitched came with its own “hitch.” Campbell wanted a prenuptial agreement. It’s not clear when the agreement was produced or how it altered the landscape of marriage law but the future bride sagely engaged an attorney to represent her. Her attorney did a bit of searching on his/her own and discovered that the groom had a more challenging problem. He was already married to another woman. And while Campbell and his wife had once filed for divorce, they had never followed through on securing a divorce decree. This discovery came about the week before the wedding. There could have been no wedding license issued. As a married man, Mr. Campbell was an ineligible receiver. The opinion tells us that Ms. Tang called off the wedding although it’s not clear to this writer how one needs to call off a wedding that could not legally take place. By the way, 18 Pa.C.S. 4301 makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to marry or purport to marry a person while still married to someone already.
Upset that his intended spouse would suspend their nuptials over something so trifling as his subsisting marriage, Campbell sued to get his jewelry back in July 2018. His legal grounds included replevin, conversion and unjust enrichment. Tang counterclaimed for fraud, conversion and unjust enrichment although it’s not explained how conversion and unjust enrichment come into play in a world where she still had the diamonds.
The case went to a non-jury trial in Delaware County. Campbell acknowledged that he was married, had no divorce decree and had failed to disclose any of this to his future wife. The court heard the case, reviewed briefs and issued a decision “in favor of Tang” on all of Cambell’s claims and a decision “in favor of Campbell” on all Tang’s claims. The decision doesn’t say both claims were dismissed.
Campbell decided to appeal. Then he filed what the Superior Court termed a “vague” Pa.R.A.P. 1925 statement summarizing the basis of his appeal. But despite this limitation, the Court decided the case because it professed to understand the issue. Part of Campbell’s argument is predicated on the assertion that Tang’s failure to execute the prenuptial agreement he tendered constituted her breach of the agreement to marry and that this triggered the “conditional gift” element of what is best termed the “laws of engagement.”
The law in this area has held that an engagement ring is a gift conditioned upon marriage. You say “yes” and the ring is yours but should you not marry the ring goes back to the “donor.” That really isn’t sound legal reasoning. ActualIy, these transactions are not gifts but conditional contracts. Courts love to wax on about these arrangements. Witness a quote from 1957 cited in 2023:
A gift given by a donor to a donee on condition that [the donee] embark on the sea of matrimony with [the donor] is no different from a gift based on the condition that the donee sail on any other sea. If, after receiving the provisional gift, the donee refuses to leave the harbor, — if the anchor of contractual performance sticks in the sands of irresolution and procrastination — the gift must be restored to the donor. Lindh v. Lindh, 742 A.2d at 644 (quoting Pavlicic v. Vogtsberger, 136 A.2d 127, 130 (Pa. 1957)).
Like just about every other family law case that involves a contract, this appellate panel insists that it is applying the law of contracts although not many commercial contract cases reference sailing on seas, departure from harbors or “sands of irresolution.”
Even If we try to view this case in a maritime context Campbell invited Tang to embark on a “voyage” beginning in May 2018. After she accepted, he issued a contract that indicated the voyage was subject to his terms (i.e., a prenuptial). Then the week before the “voyage” was to begin, Tang found out Campbell had no boat and no reasonable prospect of getting a boat to navigate the “sea of matrimony.” Everything about this “voyage” was premised on a lie. Campbell’s response is that his subsisting marriage was “immaterial” to his right to recover the jewelry and that he made a good faith effort to marry Tang.
The Court finds that Tang’s claims for fraud were barred by a 1935 statute known as the Heart Balm Act. But it then proceeds to affirm the trial court.
As we note above, courts need to drop the treacly language about marital voyages and dispense with the sloppy reasoning of conditional gift. At best, an engagement ring accompanied by a proposal of marriage is an offer of contract pregnant with either a bailment or a condition precedent. “Here’s the ring. It is on your finger but it does not belong to you until we marry.” That does not meet any reasonable definition of gift because there is no donative intent and the delivery is conditional.
Campbell sued at law in replevin. The basic premise behind replevin is that property was wrongfully taken or withheld. Tang was handed the jewelry by Campbell. So, the question should be whether Tang wrongfully withheld the jewelry.
This is a more complicated case than the analysis suggests. Campbell offered to marry Tang. She accepted. That makes this transaction a contract and not a gift. There is consideration. Tang could have married anyone. She contracted to marry Campbell. The jewels were an inducement. Meanwhile, as the Superior Court notes, Campbell lacked the capacity to marry. He chose not to disclose this very material fact and essentially wasted a year of Tang’s life. It is also of interest to this writer that after proposing marriage and having that offer accepted, Campbell introduced terms not discussed when the contract was formed. Specifically, he requested and presented a draft prenuptial agreement. The terms of the prenuptial are not discussed in the opinion and while prenuptial agreements seem to be gaining more traction, the typical engagement is still predicated on marriage based on Pennsylvania’s existing statutes related to marriage, divorce, and estate law. The case does not get to the merits of this topic, but should the introduction of a prenuptial agreement affect the rights to the jewelry described in the Campbell decision?
Another part of this is the jewelry itself. We all know that tradition dating to Roman times calls for the “man” to pony up an engagement ring when marriage is proposed. In this case Mr. Campbell came across with far more than just a ring. Yet, the Campbell case treats all of the jewelry as an “unconditional gift.” Curiously, and for reasons never proffered, the gift was transformed from conditional to unconditional premised upon Campbell’s “disability.” Actually, it would seem that this is more accurately described as the price Campbell pays for his failure to disclose his ineligibility to marry.
The additional jewelry (the added necklace and earrings) is a proxy for all kinds of other premarital transactions. Once parties are engaged, it is fairly common for lots of “benefits” to arise. Betrothed couples will often begin to pay each other’s car payments, credit cards or student loans. Are these also “conditional gifts” that might give rise to unjust enrichment or other kinds of clawback claims if the marriage doesn’t work out? The Heart Balm Act suggests the answer is negative but the case law is confusing.
The Campbell case does get to an equitable result. It appears than Tang gets to keep her diamonds. But it does little to tell us how to evaluate longstanding law related to engagement rings as “conditional gifts” to rings, necklaces and earrings becoming unconditional gifts in the same transaction. The business of being engaged has produced some pretty interesting litigation. In Smith v. NRPC (“Amtrak), a prospective bride gave up her job with the railroad in reliance upon her engagement. https://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/98D1027P.pdf . In Pavlicic v. Vogtsberger, 136 A.2d 127 (Pa. 1957) a generous suitor bought a saloon for his intended and was not pleased when she decided to call off the wedding. This is another case where the Court can’t avoid employing an analysis best described as “weird” by today’s standards. Try this language: “To allow Sara Jane to retain the money and property which she got from George by dangling before him the grapes of matrimony which she never intended to let him pluck would be to place a premium on trickery, cunning and duplicitous dealing.”
The goal of precedential decisions is to provide clarity. We live in a day when relationships are not launched on “seas” and transactions of all kinds between the date of engagement and marriage need not be equated with “dangled grapes.” Today, with some frequency, we see people buying homes, relocating or changing jobs and making hefty deposits on destination weddings in reliance upon unspecified “terms of engagement.” The 1935 Heart Balm Act dates to a time when a bride left at the altar was considered somehow less valuable. And Ferraro v. Singh informs us that damages arising from a cancelled wedding are not recoverable at law. 495 A.2d 946 (Pa. Super. 1985). Last week’s reported decision adds little clarity to just who has a justiciable action in a broken engagement and who does not.
Until we get some judicial clarity, the message to the rest of us is that when we learn of a betrothal, both parties really should be making inquiries at or about the time the question is popped. We all understand that marriage comes imbued with expectations, but lawyers commonly see cases where the request for a prenuptial comes long after the engagement event. Of course, Campbell v. Tang suggests that perhaps some research into marital status of the love of your life may be warranted as well.
Campbell v. Tang 2023 Pa. Superior 124 (2023)
https://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Superior/out/J-A03016-23o%20-%20105600879231472297.pdf?cb=1
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