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S.D. Codified Laws § 20-9-2

Comparative negligence--Reduction of damages

Applied in 52 court decisions — leading case 163 W. Va. 332 - Bradley v. Appalachian Power Co. (1979)

Most recently applied in Weiland v. Bumann (February 2025)

Source: SL 1941, ch 160; SDC Supp 1960, § 47.0304-1; SL 1964, ch 149; SL 1998, ch 125, § 1.

How often courts cite this section

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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.

In all actions brought to recover damages for injuries to a person or to that person's property caused by the negligence of another, the fact that the plaintiff may have been guilty of contributory negligence does not bar a recovery when the contributory negligence of the plaintiff was slight in comparison with the negligence of the defendant, but in such case, the damages shall be reduced in proportion to the amount of plaintiff's contributory negligence.

Notwithstanding Woods vs. City of Crooks, 559 N.W.2d 558 (SD 1997), the determination of whether the contributory negligence of the plaintiff was slight in comparison with the negligence of the defendant shall be made without disclosing any determination of percentage of plaintiff's fault by special interrogatory.

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