The court may dismiss any civil case for want of prosecution upon written notice to counsel of record where the record reflects that there has been no activity for one year, unless good cause is shown to the contrary. The term "record," for purposes of establishing good cause, shall include, but not by way of limitation, settlement negotiations between the parties or their counsel, formal or informal discovery proceedings, the exchange of any pleadings, and written evidence of agreements between the parties or counsel which justifiably result in delays in prosecution.
S.D. Codified Laws § 15-11-11
Dismissal for want of prosecution
Applied in 17 court decisions — leading case Swenson v. Sanborn County Farmers Union Oil Co. (1999)
Most recently applied in Arrowsmith v. Odle (December 2025)
Source: Supreme Court Rule 80-11; Supreme Court Rule 82-13; SL 1998, ch 311.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.