All contracts which have for their object, directly or indirectly, to exempt anyone from responsibility for his own fraud or willful injury to the person or property of another or from violation of law whether willful or negligent, are against the policy of the law.
S.D. Codified Laws § 53-9-3
Contracts against public policy
Applied in 16 court decisions — leading case Martinmaas v. Engelmann (2000)
Most recently applied in Niemitalo v. Seidel (March 2022)
Source: CivC 1877, § 954; CL 1887, § 3578; RCivC 1903, § 1272; RC 1919, § 893; SDC 1939, § 10.0702.
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.