Any person who has not authorized the improvement may protect his interests from such liens by serving upon the persons doing the work or otherwise contributing to such improvement, within five days after knowledge thereof, written notice that the improvement is not being made at his instance, or by posting like notice, and keeping the same posted, in a conspicuous place on the premises.
S.D. Codified Laws § 44-9-4
Improvement not authorized by owner of land--Notice of nonliability
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Action Mechanical, Inc. v. Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission (2002)
Most recently applied in Duffield Construction, Inc. v. Baldwin (April 2004)
Source: SL 1913, ch 263, § 5; RC 1919, § 1647; SDC 1939, § 39.0706.
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.