Elements essential to existence of a contract are:
(1) Parties capable of contracting;
(2) Their consent;
(3) A lawful object; and
(4) Sufficient cause or consideration.
S.D. Codified Laws § 53-1-2
Essential elements of contract
Applied in 39 court decisions — leading case Garrett v. BankWest, Inc. (1990)
Most recently applied in Scotlynn Transport, LLC v. Plains Towing & Recovery, LLC (April 2024)
Source: CivC 1877, § 871; CL 1887, § 3495; RCivC 1903, § 1189; RC 1919, § 804; SDC 1939, § 10.0102.
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.