S.D. Codified Laws § 21-3-2

This is the official text of S.D. Codified Laws § 21-3-2, part of South Dakota’s Codified Laws — part of the compiled statutory law of South Dakota, published by the state as "Codified Laws." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Punitive damages in discretion of jury

Official statutory text

In any action for the breach of an obligation not arising from contract, where the defendant has been guilty of oppression, fraud, or malice, actual or presumed, or in any case of wrongful injury to animals, being subjects of property, committed intentionally or by willful and wanton misconduct, in disregard of humanity, the jury, in addition to the actual damage, may give damages for the sake of example, and by way of punishing the defendant.

Source: CivC 1877, §§ 1946, 1974; CL 1887, §§ 4580, 4607; RCivC 1903, §§ 2292, 2319; RC 1919, §§ 1965, 1991; SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, § 37.1902.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.