No cause of action based on the doctrine of strict liability in tort may be asserted or maintained against any distributor, wholesaler, dealer, or retail seller of a product which is alleged to contain or possess a latent defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the buyer, user, or consumer unless said distributor, wholesaler, dealer, or retail seller is also the manufacturer or assembler of said product or the maker of a component part of the final product, or unless said dealer, wholesaler, or retail seller knew, or, in the exercise of ordinary care, should have known, of the defective condition of the final product. Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit any other cause of action from being brought against any seller of a product.
S.D. Codified Laws § 20-9-9
Product's dealers and sellers immune from strict liability except for manufacturers or those who knew of defect--Other causes of action against seller not limited
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Peterson v. Safway Steel Scaffolds Co. of South Dakota (1987)
Most recently applied in Lindholm v. BMW of North America, LLC (August 2016)
Source: SL 1979, ch 155, § 2.
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.