When an attorney is a witness for his client upon any trial except as to merely formal matters such as the attestation or custody of an instrument or the like, he shall not further participate in such trial. This section shall not apply when such attorney's testimony is offered in answer to evidence received on behalf of the other party and it shall appear to the satisfaction of the court that such attorney had no reason to anticipate the necessity of his being a witness. Neither shall this section apply to state's attorneys and the attorney general and their deputies when engaged in the discharge of official duties.
S.D. Codified Laws § 19-1-3
Attorney as witness
Applied in 12 court decisions — leading case Ward v. Lange (1996)
Most recently applied in Kern v. Progressive Northern Insurance Co. (July 2016)
Source: Supreme Court Rule, Part 2, Rule 29, 1919; Supreme Court Rule 500, 1939; SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, § 36.0107.
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.