Each county is a body corporate for civil and political purposes only, and as such may sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, in any court in this state.
S.D. Codified Laws § 7-18-1
County as body corporate--Party in court
Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case State v. Piekkola (1976)
Most recently applied in Pennington County v. State ex rel. Unified Judicial System (February 2002)
Source: SL 1874-5, ch 27, § 28; PolC 1877, ch 21, § 13; CL 1887, § 572; RPolC 1903, § 795; RC 1919, § 5791; SL 1935, ch 79; SDC 1939, § 12.1801; SL 1985, ch 15, § 23.
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.