The abuse of parental authority is the subject of judicial cognizance in a civil action in the circuit court, brought by the child or by its relatives within the third degree, or by the officers of the poor where the child resides; and when the abuse is established, the child may be freed from the dominion of the parent and the duty of support and education enforced.
S.D. Codified Laws § 25-5-16
Judicial cognizance of parental abuses--Freeing child from parental dominion
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case In Re the Termination of Parental Rights of P.A.M. (1993)
Most recently applied in Beermann v. Beermann (February 1997)
Source: SDC 1939, § 14.0307.
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.