25-5-15.   Parental liability for willful acts of child--Limitation of recovery--Motor vehicle cases excepted--Specific findings in disputed cases. Any person, firm, association, private or public corporation, including the State of South Dakota and its political subdivisions, suffering damages to real, personal, or mixed property, or personal injury, through any malicious and willful act of a minor child under the age of eighteen years while residing with the child's parents, has a cause of action against and may recover from the parents of such child. In each case the amount of recovery against one or both of the parents is limited to actual damages of two thousand five hundred dollars and the taxable court costs, and does not apply to damages proximately caused through the operation of a motor vehicle by the minor child. If the issue is disputed, any determination that a parent is not responsible for the full amount of actual damages and costs authorized by this section shall be justified in a specific finding, in writing or on the record.

Source: SL 1957, ch 41; SDC Supp 1960, § 14.0309-1; SL 1979, ch 166; SL 1980, ch 188; SL 1993, ch 194; SL 2010, ch 136, § 1.

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