## Facts

- Spouses executed a marital separation agreement in Massachusetts that was incorporated into a Massachusetts divorce judgment and contained a Massachusetts choice-of-law clause.
- The agreement included (1) periodic child-support payments while a child was “entitled to support” and (2) a separate obligation for the father to pay the children’s college expenses.
- When the older son attended college, the father paid college expenses for three years but refused to prepay the fourth year unless the son maintained a B average.
- The mother paid approximately $11,000 for the son’s senior-year tuition.
- After graduation, the father gave the son $10,000 and suggested the son repay the mother; the mother refused the money and sued the father in California for reimbursement and additional sums she characterized as child support after the children turned 18 while attending college.
- The trial court ordered reimbursement of the tuition payment and awarded the mother attorney’s fees, but denied her request for additional post-majority child support.

## Issues

1. Whether the mother, as promisee, could recover compensatory damages for breach of a college-expense provision intended to benefit the parties’ son, or whether her remedy was limited because the son was a donee beneficiary.
2. Whether the attorney’s-fee award could stand if the mother was not entitled to the reimbursement award.
3. Whether the agreement required continued child-support payments after the children reached 18 while attending college.

## Decision

- The court reversed the order requiring the father to reimburse the mother for the tuition she paid.
- The court held the college-expense promise created an intended third-party-beneficiary contract with the son as a donee beneficiary; the mother, as promisee, was limited to specific performance and, at most, nominal damages.
- The court reversed the attorney’s-fee award tied to the improperly awarded reimbursement.
- The court affirmed the denial of additional child-support payments after the children turned 18, concluding the agreement did not require post-majority child support and that any college-period “support” was addressed by the separate college-expense provision.

## Legal Principles

- In an intended third-party-beneficiary contract, either the promisee or the beneficiary may seek specific enforcement of the promisor’s duty owed to the beneficiary.
- When the third-party beneficiary is a donee beneficiary, the promisee generally cannot recover compensatory damages for amounts the promisee voluntarily pays in the beneficiary’s place; the promisee is generally limited to specific performance and nominal damages.
- Contract interpretation of support obligations may treat ordinary child support as ending at majority absent clear agreement, while separate education-expense clauses may be construed as the parties’ chosen method of providing support during college.

## Conclusion

The court held that a parent who is the promisee of a separation-agreement clause requiring the other parent to pay a child’s college expenses cannot obtain reimbursement as compensatory damages after voluntarily paying the tuition, because the child is a donee beneficiary and the promisee’s remedy is limited to specific performance and nominal damages; it also affirmed denial of post-majority child support where the agreement, read as a whole, did not require it.


In re Marriage of Smith & Maescher, 26 Cal. Rptr. 2d 133 (Cal. Ct. App. 1993)