South Dakota Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements

A federal judge awarded $41.6 million to two young victims after a Flandreau Sioux Tribe police chief initiated a reckless, policy-violating pursuit at speeds exceeding 100 mph on gravel roads in Moody County, South Dakota, leaving one teenager with a permanent traumatic brain injury.

Ronald Jensen, 71, was left quadriplegic when an unbraked single-rail cart of plywood tipped in the wind while a Menards employee loaded his truck in Mitchell on August 1, 2012. He died of unrelated bladder cancer on January 31, 2013. A Davison County jury awarded his estate and his wife $2,295,971.97 in November 2016, and the South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed in 2018.

A federal jury awarded $1.1 million to a pretrial detainee who was sexually assaulted three times by a corrections officer at Pennington County Jail.

On January 26, 1998, Julie and Erica Boomsma drove into a railroad flatcar blocking an elevator-service crossing in Wolsey, South Dakota, where the flashing lights were not working and the crossbuck understated the number of tracks. Julie broke her neck, right leg and right ankle and was left disabled; Erica had a cracked sinus, a concussion and a contusion. A jury awarded Julie and her husband $1,059,873.40 and Erica $21,781.88, and the South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed.

A federal jury in Sioux Falls awarded $1 million to a patient whose doctor failed to diagnose a post-surgical site infection, ending a streak of roughly 20 consecutive defense verdicts in South Dakota medical malpractice cases.

On January 9, 2014, a semi-tractor driven by Gerald Rains drifted over the centerline on Highway 25 near Emery, South Dakota, after Rains had a coughing fit, and its rear axle struck oncoming driver Gene Weber's pickup. Weber suffered permanent cervical facet and myofascial pain that his treating medical providers said would never fully resolve. A Hanson County jury returned a $900,000 verdict, $880,000 of it to Weber and $20,000 to his wife, Clarissa, on her loss of consortium claim, after the defendants, who had already admitted liability, put on no medical evidence of their own. K & L Construction and Rains appealed, arguing the verdict was excessive, and the South Dakota Supreme Court unanimously affirmed it in full on September 4, 2019.

William Owen sought care at the Indian Health Service hospital in Sisseton, South Dakota, in July 2001 for back and leg symptoms that proved to be cauda equina syndrome. After a two-day bench trial, Chief Judge Karen Schreier found the emergency physician negligent for failing to order imaging or a neurology referral on July 22, and entered judgment against the United States on July 31, 2009. The award was $300,000 for disability and disfigurement and $200,000 for pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.

In Hamer v. Duffy, 2026 SD 4, the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled unanimously that violations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations adopted into state law can constitute negligence per se, reversing a zero-damages jury verdict and remanding for a new trial.

Scott Abdallah obtained a pre-trial settlement against Deerfield Hutterian Brethren Colony on behalf of the family of Vannah Decker, a 15-year-old killed when a 17-year-old colony member drove an unlicensed, alcohol-impaired joyride at nearly 100 mph in a colony-owned vehicle.