Any civil action based on intentional conduct brought by any person for recovery of damages for injury suffered as a result of childhood sexual abuse shall be commenced within three years of the act alleged to have caused the injury or condition, or three years of the time the victim discovered or reasonably should have discovered that the injury or condition was caused by the act, whichever period expires later. However, no person who has reached the age of forty years may recover damages from any person or entity other than the person who perpetrated the actual act of sexual abuse.
S.D. Codified Laws § 26-10-25
Time for commencing civil action for damages resulting from childhood sexual abuse
Applied in 18 court decisions — leading case Zephier v. Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls (2008)
Most recently applied in Syrstad v. Syrstad (December 2021)
Source: SL 1991, ch 219, § 1; SL 2010, ch 141, § 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.