The board of township supervisors shall construct, repair, and maintain all of the township roads within the township except for section lines designated as no maintenance section lines pursuant to § 31-13-1.4 and roads designated as no maintenance roads pursuant to § 31-13-1.6. The township road system consists of section line roads; judicially declared roads; roads impliedly accepted by the township through routine performance of certain maintenance activities, such as grading, graveling and snow removal, and accepting funds from the county pursuant to §§ 32-11-4.1 and 32-11-6 for a period of at least fifteen years; and any other roads designated by resolution of the board as being on the township road system. A road may only be vacated through the process specified in chapter 31-3. Before a road may be added to the township road system, the road shall meet the minimum requirements specified in §§ 31-18-2 and 31-13-4, unless the board, by resolution, waives this requirement.
S.D. Codified Laws § 31-13-1
Township road system--Township board responsible for township roads
Applied in 12 court decisions — leading case Benson v. State (2006)
Most recently applied in McLAEN v. WHITE TOWNSHIP (May 2022)
Source: SDC 1939, § 28.0401; SL 1989, ch 252, § 1; SL 2012, ch 158, § 1; SL 2013, ch 131, § 1; SL 2015, ch 154, § 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.