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S.D. Codified Laws § 21-24-5

Determination of rights under trust or decedent's estate

Known as the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act

The act spans §§ 21–21 (16 sections).

Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case Wilcox v. VERMEULEN (2010)

Most recently applied in Jensen, Hoffman v. Dep't of Corrections (July 2025)

Source: SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, § 37.0104; SL 1993, ch 213, § 100.

How often courts cite this section

19811990200020102020202520
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.

Any person interested as or through a personal representative, trustee, conservator, or other fiduciary, creditor, devisee, legatee, heir, next of kin, or cestui que trust in the administration of a trust, or of the estate of a decedent, minor, protected person, or insolvent, may have a declaration of rights or legal relations in respect thereto:

(1) To ascertain any class of creditors, devisees, legatees, heirs, next of kin, or others;

(2) To direct the personal representatives or trustees to do or abstain from doing any particular act in their fiduciary capacity;

(3) To determine any question arising in the administration of the estate or trust, including questions of construction of wills and other writings.

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