Pennsylvania permits third parties, who are neither the biological father or mother of the child, child custody rights in certain cases. In a series of high court decisions, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court clarified when a third party must pay child support, which is summarized below. If you face third-party custody or child support issues, call 888-535-3686 or use the online form now to retain the LLF Law Firm's premier Family Law Team. Let our skilled and experienced attorneys help you enforce your legal rights around your third-party custody issues.
Pennsylvania Child Custody Rights
In Pennsylvania, as in other states, only the mother and father ordinarily pursue and retain physical and legal child custody rights. Physical custody generally means care and control over the child in the home, while legal custody means the right to make or participate in major decisions over the child's welfare, such as schooling, medical care, and religious practice. Parents can share either physical custody, legal custody, or both. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, boyfriends, and others, although close to the child or even the child's occasional or consistent caretaker, do not generally seek child custody and assume its obligations. Custody disputes and disputes over child-support obligations are generally between the child's parents, not others, without a parental relationship to the child, either by blood or adoption.
Pennsylvania Third-Party Child Visitation Rights
Pennsylvania, like all other states, recognizes the right of certain third parties, typically grandparents or stepparents but sometimes others, to obtain an order for child visitation. Third-party visitation ensures that non-parent individuals with whom a young child nonetheless develops a strong and dependent emotional relationship can continue that relationship with the child after the death of a parent or a family breakdown requiring a divorce, child custody, or related family court proceeding.
Pennsylvania Third-Party Child Custody Rights
Pennsylvania, though, is among the limited number of states nationwide recognizing the right of certain third parties to obtain an order not just for child visitation but also for child custody over a child of which they are not a biological or adoptive parent. In Pennsylvania, not only grandparents, stepparents, and other blood relatives but also others who stand in loco parentis to the child may obtain child custody rights. An in loco parentis relationship is one that effectively stands in the place of the parent relationship. A person who is not the child's biological parent or parent by adoption but who cares for the child as a parent would, in the parents' absence, have an in-loco parentis relationship with the child.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Authority
Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions confirm the right of a third party to obtain an order for child custody. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's 2024 decision in Caldwell v Jaurigue is an example. In that case, the child's mother and father had never married. After conceiving the child, but before the child's delivery, the mother began a romantic relationship with a boyfriend, whom the court opinion also called a paramour. The mother and boyfriend began living together shortly after the mother bore the child, over whom the mother had taken primary physical custody. When the mother died, the father took primary physical custody, while the boyfriend assumed partial physical custody to continue his close emotional bond and occasional caretaker relationship with the child. Regarding the father's objection, Pennsylvania's family court granted the boyfriend partial physical custody over the child, as affirmed by the Superior Court.
Child Custody's Relationship to Child Support
Behind just about every child custody dispute lurks the related question of child support. Ordinarily, the parent with full child custody receives support from the non-custodial parent. If one parent has full custody but the other parent has partial custody, then the court may pro-rate and reduce the support that the parent with partial custody owes. If both parents share physical custody equally, the court may not require the support of either parent to the other parent or may make various allocations of support depending on each case's equities. Child support orders are routine in custody cases involving only the two parents. But child support orders can get tricky when third parties seek and obtain custody, as the following discussion shows.
Issues with Third-Party Child Support
Third-party child custody, whether full or partial and whether physical or legal, is one thing. As explained above, Pennsylvania's courts recognize third-party child custody to ensure the child benefits from stable relationships through a potentially tumultuous period. Yet third-party child support is a quite different claim, not for physical presence or decision-making authority but instead for money. And, as Pennsylvania's courts have held, to obligate a non-parent to pay for the child's upbringing simply because the non-parent has developed a close emotional relationship with the child could discourage non-parents from doing so. Pennsylvania's courts have thus had to decide not only when to grant third-party child custody but also whether and when to require the third party who obtains custody to pay child support.
Pennsylvania's Third-Party Child Support Example
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court case cited above, Caldwell v Jaurigue, is the leading example of a case in which a parent with full custody and third party with partial custody disputed whether the third party should pay child support. In Caldwell v Jaurigue, when the boyfriend succeeded in obtaining an order for partial physical custody of the child, the father responded with a petition for an order requiring the boyfriend to pay child support. Turnabout, apparently, is fair play. Because the boyfriend had only partial custody, the father argued that the boyfriend should pay child support to the father when the father had the child for the significantly greater portion of the time, incurring significantly greater expenses. The father relied on prior
Pennsylvania's Third-Party Child Support Rule
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court case cited above, Caldwell v Jaurigue, drew a bright line rule for which third parties with custody may owe a child support obligation, along with their child custody rights, and which third parties would not owe such a support obligation, despite their child custody rights. The high court held that a third party may owe child support only when having legal custody over the child, not just physical custody. That's Pennsylvania's existing bright line rule for third party child support.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's Rationale
The high court's reasoning illustrates the rule's contours. Technically, the high court held that in loco parentis status alone, supplemented by partial physical custody, does not meet the statutory definition of parent under the state's child-support statute 23 Pa.C.S. §4321(2). Courts don't make laws; they instead interpret laws that legislatures make. Yet the Caldwell v Jaurigueopinion had to come up with some reasoning because the legislature did not supply a definition for parent within the child support statute. The high court reasoned that physical custody is subordinate to legal custody. With physical custody, one only gets to care for the child, not make major decisions affecting the child's life. In the high court's view, legal custody equates to the role of a parent, not so much physical custody alone. After all, parents let daycare centers, schools, and, yes, grandparents and boyfriends care for their children when no one would presume those others to be the child's parent.
Applying the Third-Party Child Support Rule
Where this rule leaves you depends on your personal circumstances, of course. However, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's bright line between owing third-party child support and not owing third-party child support is a line that the parties can largely control, albeit at times with a court's help.
Third-Party Rights and Interests
If, for instance, you are a third party desiring to maintain a relationship with the child, then the rule allows you to go for physical custody without concern over having to pay child support. The high court in Caldwell v Jaurigueexpressly wanted you to have that encouragement to help the child without facing a financial risk. With only physical custody, rather than physical and legal custody, you won't get to make major decisions affecting the child, but you'll get to care for the child. If, on the other hand, you want or need to make major decisions affecting the child, then you'll know that you face a financial risk of having to pay child support, at least if you're not the child's sole custodian.
Parent Rights and Interests
If, instead, you are a parent in a dispute with a third party over your child's custody and support, you'll know that you won't get child support unless you relinquish or share legal custody. You may need and deserve child support from a third party. But you'll need to make your own calculation as to whether it's worth giving up or sharing legal custody and potentially see the third party make or advocate decisions with which you disagree.
Premier Pennsylvania Family Law Representation
If you face issues with third-party child custody or support, call 888-535-3686 or use the online form now to retain the LLF Law Firm's premier Family Law Team to enforce your rights. Get our skilled and experienced family law representation to favorably resolve your third-party custody and support issues.
