## Facts

- Sharon L. Style and Ronald C. Shaub divorced after having one child, Dustin Charles Shaub (born 1987).
- A child-support order entered during Dustin’s minority was administratively set to terminate after Dustin turned 18 and completed high school; no timely request was made to continue support.
- The trial court terminated the minor-child support order in 2005 after Shaub paid arrears.
- In 2006, when Dustin was 19, Style filed a new complaint seeking support on the ground that Dustin’s psychiatric and medical conditions prevented gainful employment.
- Evidence showed Dustin had longstanding diagnoses including ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, dysthymia/chronic depression, and atypical autism, treated with medication for much of his life.
- Dustin had attempted several jobs with mixed results, including some success as a dishwasher but difficulty maintaining other work due to concentration problems.
- Dustin attended a residential vocational-training program for disabled individuals.
- A vocational evaluator testified that Dustin required rehabilitative services and might be employable in a minimally distracting setting with repetitive tasks, but the record lacked specific evidence of realistic job options, expected wages, or whether he could be self-supporting.

## Issues

1. Whether the failure to respond to a termination notice and the entry of a 2005 termination order equitably estopped or otherwise barred a later, new action seeking support for an adult disabled child.
2. Whether the evidence rebutted the presumption that support ends at majority by proving the adult child’s disability rendered him unable to engage in profitable employment and thus incapable of self-support.

## Decision

- The Superior Court affirmed the dismissal of the new support complaint.
- The court held the prior termination process did not, by itself, bar filing a new complaint seeking support for an adult disabled child.
- The court held Style did not meet her burden to prove Dustin was incapable of self-support due to disability, given the absence of concrete evidence on employability and earning capacity and testimony indicating possible workforce participation with accommodations.
- Applying deferential review of support determinations, the court found no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s conclusion that the proof was insufficient.

## Legal Principles

- In Pennsylvania, a parent’s support duty generally ends at majority/high school completion, and the party seeking post-majority support bears the burden to rebut that presumption.
- Post-majority support may be ordered for an adult child only upon proof that a continuing physical or mental condition makes the child unable to engage in profitable employment and therefore unable to be self-supporting.
- Termination of an existing support order through the administrative notice procedure does not automatically extinguish a later substantive claim for support of an adult disabled child.
- Evidence of diagnoses and functional limitations is insufficient without competent proof connecting the condition to actual incapacity for self-support, including realistic employment and earning-capacity information.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed dismissal because, although a new action for support of an adult disabled child was not barred by the earlier termination, the evidence did not establish that Dustin’s conditions made him incapable of self-supporting employment.


Style v. Shaub, 955 A.2d 403 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2008)