In The Wedding Banquet, a Chinese gay man tries to please his father by pretending to marry a Chinese woman. Apparently, life does imitate art because it appears that a Chinese gay man recently tried to marry a Chinese woman, but this time the marriage was real and she didn’t know he was gay.

In 1996, Holden Lee and Janet Yang began dating in Hong Kong. Both were very successful: he had an MBA from the Wharton School and was an investment banker, and she had B.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford. She worked for Salomon Smith Barney in Hong Kong, earning $500,000 a year as a research analyst.

In 1997, Holden moved to San Francisco to start a new job. In March of 1999, Lee formally proposed to Yang, presenting her with an engagement ring (the diamond was from his grandmother’s ring and appraisers valued it at $80,000).

Yang accepted both the proposal to marry and the ring. The couple set the marriage date for September of 1999 and agreed that Yang would move to S.F. Meanwhile, in spring 1999 the couple each added the other as a signatory on their respective Hong Kong bank accounts. Before making the move to S.F., Yang wired $60,000 to one of Lee’s Bank of America accounts.

Yang arrived in S.F. in June 1999, and began living with Lee. Lee added her to three of his accounts and the couple purchased a condo together. The couple took a loan in Lee’s name for close to $800,000 and purchased property as joint tenants.

Yang’s new job in SF didn’t pay as well as the one she had in Hong Kong. In fact, she made a meager $70,000 a year.

A few weeks before the scheduled wedding, Yang discovered love letters written to Lee by different men from various parts of the world. The discovery of her betrothed’s undisclosed gay liaisons made her feel “utterly shocked” and betrayed and she made several suicide attempts.

Lee still wanted to marry Yang, so the two traveled to Maryland to visit Yang’s parents, who interviewed Lee alone. Her father videotaped the interview and also gave Lee a five-page handwritten questionnaire to fill out.

Lee testified that Yang’s father indicated that if Lee transferred $500,000 to the parents’ bank account within one week, they would put aside their hesitations and support their daughter’s decision to marry him. They wanted Lee to assure them that everything would be “okay” for their daughter.

The next day Yang and Lee cancelled the wedding and sold the condo in S.F., splitting the proceeds.

Meanwhile, Yang withdrew $350,000 in cash from the checking accounts she shared with Lee and transferred the funds to an account she shared with her parents.

Lee sued Yang for taking the funds from the accounts, and he wanted the engagement ring back. Yang sued Lee for breach of contract, fraud, battery, and intentionally inflicting distress on her.

The trial court found that Yang had to return the ring, but Yang could keep the funds she transferred. The case then went to the California Court of Appeals, which agreed with the trial court.

The California Multiple-Party Accounts Law (CAMPAL) provides that an account belongs to the parties in proportion to their net contributions. Lee added Yang as a signatory to three of his accounts. The law entitled Yang to withdraw funds with no questions asked. Even though Lee made a greater proportionate net contribution to the accounts, the court found the law did not require Yang to reimburse him because Lee did not place any limits on Yang’s use of the accounts. When Yang took the funds they (the funds) passed to her as a gift. But one of the three justices disagreed with this ruling and found that Yang did not own the funds in the account, at least not all of them.

But the way the court rejected Yang’s other claims was quite interesting. First, the court said that Yang could not sue for breach of promise to marry or cohabitate after marriage because California statutes prohibit such suits. Second, Yang could not sue for battery. She alleged that Lee got her to consent to sex because he failed to disclose he was gay, but, had he disclosed he was gay before sex, she would not have consented. But the court found that nondisclosure of one’s sex’s life or sexual past or identity could not render a consensual act nonconsensual. “Were it otherwise, a common trait of human nature would be turned into a tort.” Third, Yang could not keep the ring because California law requires the parties to return gifts made on condition of marriage.