S.D. Codified Laws § 25-4-52

Visitation rights for grandparents--Enforcement by circuit court

Applied in 14 court decisions — leading case Cooper v. Merkel (1991)

Most recently applied in Beach v. Coisman (May 2012)

Source: SL 1982, ch 191, § 1; SL 2001, ch 130, § 1; SL 2003, ch 144, § 1; SL 2004, ch 172, § 1.

How often courts cite this section

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.

The circuit court may grant grandparents reasonable rights of visitation with their grandchild, with or without petition by the grandparents, if the visitation is in the best interests of the grandchild and:

(1) If the visitation will not significantly interfere with the parent- child relationship; or

(2) If the parent or custodian of the grandchild has denied or prevented the grandparent reasonable opportunity to visit the grandchild.

The circuit court shall issue any orders necessary to enforce or to protect visitation rights granted pursuant to this section.

As used in this section, the term grandparents includes great-grandparents.

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