Where a contract has but a single object and such object is unlawful in whole or in part, or wholly impossible of performance, or so vaguely expressed as to be wholly unascertainable, the entire contract is void.
S.D. Codified Laws § 53-5-3
Unlawfulness of object and impossibility of performance renders contract void
Applied in 10 court decisions — leading case Knecht v. Evridge (2020)
Most recently applied in Alexander v. Estate of Hobart (July 2025)
Source: CivC 1877, § 904; CL 1887, § 3528; RCivC 1903, § 1222; RC 1919, § 837; SDC 1939, § 10.0403.
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.