## Facts

- Mary Tweeddale owned land and conveyed it to her son Daniel under an arrangement that included Daniel’s bonded duty to support Mary, secured by a mortgage on the land.
- The agreement also required Daniel, upon selling the land, to pay specified sums: $1,200 to Mary, $50 to a sister, and $100 to Mary’s other son, Edward.
- Daniel later sold the land, triggering the promised payments.
- After the sale, Mary agreed to discharge Daniel’s $1,200 obligation to her and executed a satisfaction/release of the mortgage.
- Edward did not learn of the $100 payment provision until after the mortgage was released.
- Edward sued Daniel to recover the $100 as an intended third-party beneficiary; the trial court dismissed the complaint.

## Issues

1. Whether an intended third-party beneficiary may sue in his own name to enforce a promise made for his benefit in a contract between others, despite furnishing no consideration.
2. Whether the original contracting parties may later revoke or impair a third-party beneficiary’s established contractual right without the beneficiary’s consent.
3. Whether the promisee’s release and satisfaction of the mortgage extinguished the promisor’s duty to pay the beneficiary after the triggering event (sale of the land) occurred.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed the dismissal.
- Edward, as an intended third-party beneficiary, could sue Daniel directly to enforce the $100 promise.
- Daniel’s sale of the land triggered the duty to pay Edward, creating an enforceable liability to Edward.
- Mary’s later release and satisfaction of the mortgage could discharge only her own interests and was ineffective to defeat Edward’s established claim.

## Legal Principles

- A third person for whose benefit a promise is made, supported by consideration moving from the promisee to the promisor, may maintain an action in his own name to enforce the promise.
- Once a contractual liability to an intended third-party beneficiary has arisen and the beneficiary’s right has attached, the contracting parties cannot, without the beneficiary’s consent, rescind or modify the contract to extinguish or diminish that right.
- A release or satisfaction executed by the promisee cannot nullify a third-party beneficiary’s established right to payment when the contract created a direct benefit to the beneficiary and the triggering condition has occurred.

## Conclusion

The court held that Edward was an intended beneficiary of the land-transfer agreement and, once Daniel sold the land, Edward’s right to the $100 became enforceable and could not be defeated by Mary’s subsequent release of Daniel or satisfaction of the mortgage.


Tweeddale v. Tweeddale, 93 N.W. 440 (Wis. 1903)