No action for the recovery of real property, or for the recovery of the possession thereof, shall be maintained unless it appears that the plaintiff, his ancestor, predecessor, or grantor was seized or possessed of the premises in question within twenty years before the commencement of such action.
S.D. Codified Laws § 15-3-1
Seizin or possession within twenty years required for action to recover real property or possession
Applied in 17 court decisions — leading case Benson v. State (2006)
Most recently applied in Hoffman v. Hollow Horn (September 2024)
Source: SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, § 33.0217.
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.