A widow or widower, though without children, while continuing to occupy the homestead used as such at the time of the death of the husband or wife, or any family, whether consisting of one or more persons in actual occupancy of a homestead as defined in this code, shall be deemed and held to be a family within the meaning of the laws of this state relating to homesteads.
S.D. Codified Laws § 43-31-14
Family defined
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case In Re Johnson (1986)
Most recently applied in Wisner v. Pavlin (July 2006)
Source: SL 1874-5, ch 37, § 2; PolC 1877, ch 38, §§ 2, 19; CL 1887, §§ 2450, 2467; RPolC 1903, §§ 3216, 3235; RC 1919, § 450; SDC 1939, § 51.1702.
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.