## Facts

- Wheamei Chen (mother) and Richard Chen (father) divorced in 1983 and executed a property settlement agreement addressing custody and child support for their daughter, Theresa.
- The agreement required father to pay $25 per week in child support to mother, with increases tied to father’s regular employment and salary increases consistent with county guidelines.
- The agreement was incorporated by reference into the divorce decree but not merged, leaving it enforceable as a private contract between the parents.
- Father obtained employment and raises but did not increase the $25 weekly payments for many years.
- When Theresa turned 18 and support was set to end, mother filed a contempt/enforcement petition seeking retroactive enforcement of the escalation provision and recovery of the alleged shortfall.
- Theresa petitioned to intervene, claiming she was an intended third-party beneficiary of the agreement’s support provisions.
- The trial court allowed intervention, mother withdrew, and the trial court entered a contract judgment for Theresa for roughly $59,000 in arrears.
- The Superior Court affirmed; the Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted review limited to whether Theresa was an intended beneficiary with standing to enforce the agreement.

## Issues

1. Whether a child is an intended third-party beneficiary with standing to enforce child-support terms in her parents’ property settlement agreement when payments are directed to the custodial parent rather than to the child.

## Decision

- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed.
- The Court held Theresa was not an intended third-party beneficiary of the property settlement agreement’s support provisions and therefore lacked standing to intervene or enforce them.
- The Court vacated the resulting arrears award entered in Theresa’s favor.

## Legal Principles

- Third-party beneficiary status requires more than receiving a benefit in fact; the contract must show the parties intended to confer enforceable rights on the third party.
- Where a marital settlement agreement requires child-support payments to be made to the custodial parent, that structure generally indicates the parents intended enforcement to remain with the promisee parent (or, where applicable, public support enforcement), not with the child.
- Non-merger of a settlement agreement into a divorce decree preserves its contractual character but does not, by itself, create third-party enforcement rights for a child.
- A child’s direct enforcement may require clear contractual language granting the child a right to performance or special circumstances making parental enforcement impracticable.

## Conclusion

The court held that an adult child could not sue to enforce child-support escalation terms in her parents’ marital settlement agreement because the agreement did not clearly confer on her enforceable third-party beneficiary rights, particularly where payments were owed to the custodial parent.


Chen v. Chen, 893 A.2d 87 (Pa. 2006)