Barratry is the assertion of a frivolous or malicious claim or defense or the filing of any document with malice or in bad faith by a party in a civil action. Barratry constitutes a cause of action which may be asserted by filing a pleading in the same civil action in which the claim of barratry arises or in a subsequent action. A claim of barratry shall be determined in the same manner as any other substantive cause of action asserted in that civil action.
S.D. Codified Laws § 20-9-6.1
Claim of barratry
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case Harvieux v. Progressive N. Ins. Co. (2018)
Most recently applied in Smith Masonry v. Wipi Group Inc. (June 2025)
Source: SL 1997, ch 111, § 1; SL 2001, ch 104, § 1.
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.