Service of process as authorized by § 15-7-6 shall be made by serving a copy thereof upon the secretary of state, or by filing the copy in the office of the secretary of state, together with payment of a fee of fifteen dollars. The service shall be sufficient service upon the absent resident or the nonresident or the resident's or nonresident's personal representative if the notice of the service and a copy of the process are within ten days thereafter sent by mail by the plaintiff to the defendant at the defendant's last-known address and that the plaintiff's affidavit of compliance with the provisions of this section is attached to the summons. The secretary of state shall keep a record of any process so served. The record shall show the day and hour of the service. The fee of fifteen dollars paid by the plaintiff to the secretary of state at the time of service of the process shall be recovered as taxable costs if the plaintiff prevails in the suit.
S.D. Codified Laws § 15-7-7
Service on secretary of state for nonresident motorist--Fee--Notice mailed to defendant--Record of process served
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Lekanidis v. Bendetti (2000)
Most recently applied in Kaiser Trucking, Inc. v. Liberty Mutual (February 2026)
Source: SDC 1939, § 33.0809; SL 1957, ch 178; SL 1963, ch 226; SL 2003, ch 8, § 4; SL 2009, ch 4, § 5.
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.