Except as otherwise provided in § 53-9-11.2, an employee may agree with an employer at the time of employment or at any time during employment not to engage directly or indirectly in the same business or profession as that of the employer for any period not exceeding two years from the date of termination of the agreement and not to solicit existing customers of the employer within a specified county, first- or second-class municipality, or other specified area for any period not exceeding two years from the date of termination of the agreement, if the employer continues to carry on a like business therein.
S.D. Codified Laws § 53-9-11
Employment contract--Competition limitation upon termination
Applied in 15 court decisions — leading case Communication Technical Systems, Inc. v. Densmore (1998)
Most recently applied in Aqreva, LLC v. Eide Bailly, LLP (October 2020)
Source: SL 1929, ch 88; SDC 1939, § 10.0706 (3); SL 1984, ch 318; SL 2021, ch 205, § 1; SL 2023, ch 160, § 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.