Subject to the court's right to award custody of the child to either parent, considering the best interest of the child as to its temporal, mental, and moral welfare the father and mother of any minor child born in wedlock are equally entitled to the child's custody, service, and earnings.
S.D. Codified Laws § 25-5-7
Parents equally entitled to custody and earnings of child born in wedlock
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Mayer v. Mayer (1986)
Most recently applied in Berger v. Van Winsen (December 2007)
Source: SDC 1939, § 14.0303; SL 1991, ch 210, § 6; SL 2008, ch 131, § 1.
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.