Until now, judges in Massachusetts had to decide who was at fault for the breakdown in a relationship and allow them to keep the ring, The Boston Globe reports.

However, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has now overturned that 65-year-old rule.

“More than six decades ago, we recognised that an antenuptial ring generally is understood to be a conditional gift and determined that the donor may recover the ring following a failed engagement, but only if the donor was ‘without fault’,” the court said.

“We now join the modern trend adopted by the majority of jurisdictions that have considered the issue and retire the concept of fault.”

The ruling was made in a case where a man sued his former fiancée for the return of a $70,000 Tiffany engagement ring.

A lower court had ruled that the fiancée could keep the ring as the engagement ended when he wrongly accused her of infidelity.

The fiancée’s lawyer, Stephanie Taverna, said the judgment had “modernised the law” and “helps parties settle issues among themselves without needing to litigate, just like the no-fault divorce statute did when that was enacted in 1975”.