In every action for the recovery of real property or the possession thereof, the person establishing a legal title to the premises shall be presumed to have been possessed thereof within the time required by law; and the occupation of such premises by any other person shall be deemed to have been under and in subordination to the legal title, unless it appear that such premises have been held and possessed adversely to such legal title for twenty years before the commencement of such action.
S.D. Codified Laws § 15-3-7
Possession of real property presumed from legal title--Occupation by another presumed subordinate to legal title
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case City of Deadwood v. Summit, Inc. (2000)
Most recently applied in Fuoss v. Dahlke Family Limited Partnership (January 2023)
Source: SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, § 33.0220.
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.