Adaptation note: This story is adapted from a matter handled by Lingtu Law. Party identities, case details and the outcome have been changed, and it does not reflect the actual result of the original case.

Mr. L works in Los Angeles and met his ex-girlfriend through a dating app. While they were together he spent more than $10,000 on a luxury watch for her. After the breakup she refused to give it back, and he came to Lingtu to prepare a complete small claims filing package.

• The watch was worth more than California's $12,500 small claims limit for individual plaintiffs. Mr. L later remembered other valuable gifts, including a handbag and jewelry, but had no proof for most of them.
• California abolished breach-of-promise-to-marry claims long ago. Unconditional gifts given during a relationship generally can't be recovered; only a gift made in contemplation of marriage can. This watch was an everyday model, not an engagement token. Their chats never mentioned marriage, and Mr. L himself referred to it as an ordinary gift.
• His only recording that sounded like talk of marriage was made secretly. California is a two-party consent state, so submitting it could get it excluded and could expose him to a countersuit. He had also never asked for the watch back in writing after the breakup.
• Small claims requires parties to appear in person, without a lawyer. Mr. L had to face the judge alone, and most of his evidence was Chinese-language WeChat screenshots.

• Sue for the watch alone and waive the amount above the limit. The other gifts lacked proof and would not have added a cent, so we left them out and kept the case in small claims, the simplest and fastest forum.
• Frame the case only as a gift conditioned on marriage, not as "she deceived me," to avoid dismissal as a breach-of-promise claim. We had Mr. L search his family group chat for messages from the days of the purchase, where he told his family about it and they replied about marriage. We added her dating profile seeking a long-term relationship and his chats telling friends he wanted to get married. Out of more than forty items we kept seven sets, and the hearing outline answered in advance any unfavorable screenshots she might produce.
• The recording was never submitted, played or forwarded. No demand letter was needed either: in mid-March he had asked for the watch in person, she refused, and he called the police on the spot. The text message from the police system was a neutral, contemporaneous record that he had asked and she had not returned it, so he could truthfully answer "yes" on the claim form's prior-demand question.
• We prepared a bilingual hearing statement he could deliver in three minutes, with written answers to the three questions the judge was most likely to ask, including "Was this an engagement gift?" and "Did she agree to marry you?" He switched WeChat to English, machine-translated each message and re-captured it, and filed the screenshots side by side, saving most of the certified translation cost.

Date	Milestone
Sep 2025	Mr. L paid for the watch in two installments and gave it to her
Mid-Mar 2026	Asked for it back in person without success; police could not resolve it
Late Mar 2026	Retained Lingtu; narrowed the claim to the watch, selected seven sets of evidence, drafted the claim form and hearing materials
Jun 2026	At the small claims hearing, the judge found the watch was a gift conditioned on marriage and ordered its return or payment up to the limit

This case started with almost no evidence of an engagement, and Mr. L's own words in his chats could have lost it for him. We narrowed the claim to one gift, held to the conditional-gift theory, and cut what he had to say alone in court to under three minutes. He recovered the maximum the court allows.

The judge found the watch was a gift conditioned on marriage and ordered the other side to return it or pay up to the small claims limit.