A hot topic in the area of family law is whether third parties have obligations of child support. Recently, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in the case of Caldwell v. Jaurigue, 315 A.3d 1258 (Pa. 2024), held that a deceased mother’s former paramour was not liable for child support because that person did not have legal custody of the child. Though the issue of child support obligations of stepparents and paramours has been addressed in the Pennsylvania Superior Court and Supreme Court, the Pennsylvania appellate courts have not addressed the support obligations of grandparents until the recent case of Mazzarese v. Mazzarese, ___ A.3d ___, 2024 Pa. Super. 145 (July 15, 2024). In a case of first impression, the Superior Court addressed the issue head on in Mazzarese. The pertinent facts of the Mazzarese case are as follows: the maternal grandparents raised the mother’s three children (from three separate fathers) essentially the children’s entire lives, absent short periods of time when the mother would resume custody and would then disappear without notification to the maternal grandparents, “leaving the maternal grandparents as the default caretakers without knowledge of the mother’s whereabouts.”

As a result of the same, the maternal grandparents filed a complaint for custody. The mother filed preliminary objections to the custody matter challenging the maternal grandparents’ “standing.” The trial court dismissed the preliminary objections “finding the maternal grandparents ‘had been the primary caretakers of the children with the consent of the mother, for the majority of the children’s lives.’” According to the opinion, the two known fathers of the children reached agreements with the maternal grandparents. Pursuant to an interim order regarding the mother and maternal grandparents, the maternal grandparents have primary physical custody and shared legal custody of the children.