The South Dakota Supreme Court recently analyzed the four-part Complete Auto test to determine if the State’s use tax results in a burden on interstate taxation in Ellingson Drainage, Inc. v. South Dakota Department of...more
In our January insurance update, we include three state cases addressing some less common situations. It’s not often that a pollution exclusion is interpreted in the context of an auto policy. But the South Dakota Supreme...more
The Supreme Court of South Dakota has held that a state insurance liquidator’s notice of a claim first made and reported four months after the insolvent insurer’s claims-made policy period had ended was within the policy’s...more
In a recent opinion, the South Dakota Supreme Court held that trust beneficiaries lacked standing to bring claims against a third party on behalf of the trust. In so holding, the court explained that trustees typically are...more
What’s a goocher? If you saw the movie, Stand By Me, then you know exactly what I mean. And there are times when parties to a construction contract face a goocher. ...more
The Supreme Court of the State of South Dakota (“Court”) addressed in an August 12th opinion an action by the State of South Dakota and the South Dakota Petroleum Release Compensation Fund (“Fund”) action to recover payments...more
Welcome to CICR’s annual review of insurance cases. Here, we spotlight five decisions from the last year that you should know about—and five pending cases to watch. As our picks for “Cases to Know” indicate, 2019 was not a...more
December 2019 Interest Rates for GRATs, Sales to Defective Grantor Trusts, Intra-Family Loans and Split-Interest Charitable Trusts - The December Section 7520 rate for use with estate planning techniques such as CRTs,...more
California resident Cleopatra Cameron was the beneficiary of trusts created under California law. In 2009, her husband, Christopher Pallanck, filed for divorce in California. As part of the divorce proceeding, the California...more
Do costs associated with complying with an injunction constitute covered “damages?” The U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota recently certified that question to the South Dakota Supreme Court, in Sapienza v....more
The South Dakota Supreme Court (“Court”) addressed in a December 19th opinion an issue involving governmental taking and nuisance claims. See Krsnak v. Brant Lake Sanitary District, 2018 WL 6683535. The issues arose in the...more
In the world of products liability, design defect claims arise when the product is inherently dangerous in its design. The test for whether a product is inherently dangerous has evolved in modern years from the “consumer...more
On September 14, 2017, the South Dakota Supreme Court released its much-anticipated opinion in the Wayfair litigation, affirming a March 2017 trial court decision granting the remote retailer’s motion for summary judgment on...more
South Dakotans will need their state lawmakers’ help now to pry open physicians’ iron grip on secret decisions about which doctors get to practice in hospitals and why. That’s because the state’s Supreme Court ruled this...more
South Dakota’s highest court has been asked to reject hospitals’ attempts to keep secret why a doctor, who also is a convicted burglar with a checkered medical past that could have easily been uncovered, passed a peer review...more