In any action for the breach of an obligation to pay wages, if a private employer has been oppressive, fraudulent, or malicious, in the employer's refusal to pay wages due to the employee, the measure of damages is double the amount of wages for which the employer is liable.
S.D. Codified Laws § 60-11-7
Liability of employer for double damages for breach of obligation to pay wages
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case Nelson v. WEB Water Development Ass'n, Inc. (1993)
Most recently applied in Baker v. Masco Builder Cabinet Group, Inc. (December 2012)
Source: SDC Supp 1960, ch 37.19 as added by SL 1968, ch 153; SL 2008, ch 276, § 80.
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.