For the breach of an obligation not arising from contract, the measure of damages, except where otherwise expressly provided by this code, is the amount which will compensate for all the detriment proximately caused thereby, whether it could have been anticipated or not.
S.D. Codified Laws § 21-3-1
General measure of damages for breach of noncontractual obligation--Foreseeability not required
Applied in 23 court decisions — leading case Schmidt v. Wildcat Cave, Inc. (1977)
Most recently applied in Lamb v. Winkler (March 2023)
Source: CivC 1877, § 1967; CL 1887, § 4600; RCivC 1903, § 2312; RC 1919, § 1984; SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, § 37.1901.
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.