Every person who suffers detriment from the unlawful act or omission of another may recover from the person in fault a compensation therefor in money, which is called damages. Detriment is a loss or harm suffered in person or property.
S.D. Codified Laws § 21-1-1
Right to damages for detriment from unlawful act or omission of another
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case Gross v. Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co. (1985)
Most recently applied in McGee v. Spencer Quarries, Inc. (December 2023)
Source: CivC 1877, §§ 1940, 1941; CL 1887, §§ 4574, 4575; RCivC 1903, §§ 2286, 2287; RC 1919, §§ 1959, 1960; SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, § 37.1701.
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.