S.D. Codified Laws § 20-9-16

Landowner liability for gross negligence or injury suffered where consideration charged or law violated

Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case Johnson v. Rapid City Softball Ass'n (1994)

Most recently applied in Rantapaa v. Black Hills Chair Lift Co. (August 2001)

Source: SL 1987, ch 158, § 5; SL 2010, ch 109, § 5; SL 2022, ch 57, § 5.

How often courts cite this section

citing decisions per year

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.

Nothing in §§ 20-9-12 to 20-9-18, inclusive, limits in any way any liability which otherwise exists:

(1) For gross negligence or willful or wanton misconduct of the owner;

(2) For injury suffered in any case where the owner of land charges any participant, except as provided in § 20-9-16.1 or except in the case of land leased to the state or a political subdivision of the state, any consideration received by the owner for the lease may not be deemed a charge within the meaning of this section nor may any incentive payment paid to the owner by the state or federal government to promote public access for outdoor recreational activities be considered a charge; or

(3) For injury suffered in any case where the owner has violated a county or municipal ordinance or state law which violation is a proximate cause of the injury.

Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.