Ethical question: does he owe for an unused ticket?

Here’s a hypothetical case.

Bob and Kitty have been going out for six months. They are both students in their twenties. Kitty began the relationship very aggressively, and she continues to administer it pretty much according to her whim.

Bob has tried to break up with Kitty five or six times because she is so high maintenance. He is a very busy senior with a lot of responsibility, and she has treated his schoolwork as her direct personal adversary and rival. She is not as serious a student as he is, and she is a year behind. But she makes such a scene every time he’s tried to call it off that he has kept agreeing to continue to the end of the school year rather than pay the high emotional price of a breakup.

Kitty has a very rich uncle. We’ll call him Uncle Al. Uncle Al is extremely lavish with his funds and Kitty can pretty much have what she wants from him.

Kitty invited Bob to attend a wedding with her out of the country right after finals and right before his graduation. He did not want to go, but she bullied him into it. Uncle Al is covering all expenses. Bob would never have caved and agreed to go otherwise because neither he nor his parents could afford it. The lure of a trip influenced him, and he thought that going would make Kitty happy enough that she would let him get through the rest of his school year without such a struggle. Soon he began to have second thoughts because her demands did not diminish and because he did not like missing his last chance to see and celebrate with all his friends right before graduation. But under the circumstances he did not back out.

Kitty has continued to make unreasonable demands on his time and attention and added so much to his stress during his final extremely intense weeks of school that he finally snapped and said that he did not think he wanted to go to the wedding after all.

At that point she went ballistic, reamed him out, called him names, etc., told him to leave and never come back and that she never wanted to see him again ever as long as she lived.

He was upset over the scene but basically not all that sad to be off the hook. He had never been in love with her and was never going to be, and she had finally accomplished the feat of breaking it off.

By the next day she was back crying, pleading, and begging him to reconsider, saying “How could you do this to me?” He finally said no, that was enough, and he wanted nothing further to do with her. The trip and everything else was off.

Now she tells him that the ticket paid for by Uncle Al is nonrefundable and nontransferable and that only he (Bob) can use the credit, even though it was bought on Uncle Al’s credit card. (This checks out.) Bob has no use for the ticket credit. He is not going abroad for any other reason, and the airline does not fly where he is going. Kitty demands that Bob compensate Uncle Al for the cost of the ticket, and she has threatened him with consequences if he does not comply.

Question: Does Bob owe Uncle Al the price of a ticket he did not want, could not have afforded, cannot use, and cannot sell?