No lapse of time can legalize a public nuisance, amounting to an actual obstruction of public right.
S.D. Codified Laws § 21-10-4
Public nuisance not legalized by lapse of time
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case City of Rapid City v. Hoogterp (1970)
Most recently applied in State Ex Rel. Department of Transportation v. Garvin (June 1990)
Source: CivC 1877, § 2053; CL 1887, § 4687; RCivC 1903, § 2399; RC 1919, § 2072; SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, § 37.4704.
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.