On March 16, Governor Larry Rhoden signed Senate Bill 137 into law, making South Dakota the 40th state to provide its citizens with statutory protections against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). SLAPPs are frivolous lawsuits designed to silence, intimidate, and drain the financial resources of critics.
By enacting this crucial legislation, South Dakota officially adopts the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (UPEPA), a model statute drafted and approved by the nonpartisan Uniform Law Commission (ULC). With the adoption of UPEPA, South Dakota sheds its status as one of the few remaining states without free speech safeguards and joins a rapidly growing movement enacting the gold standard for anti-SLAPP legislation.
For nearly two decades, free speech advocates faced a daunting uphill battle in Pierre. A proposed anti-SLAPP bill died in a House committee in 2007, and subsequent efforts repeatedly stalled, leaving South Dakotans uniquely vulnerable to retaliatory litigation. While much of the country modernized its legal frameworks to protect citizen voices, South Dakota remained a glaring holdout. The passage of SB 137 finally breaks this long legislative drought.
The legislation received overwhelming, bipartisan support. The measure cleared the Senate unanimously, 33-0, on February 9, and subsequently passed the House of Representatives by a decisive 65-2 margin on March 5.
Prior to this enactment, the Institute for Free Speech’s Anti-SLAPP Report Card gave South Dakota an “F” for its total lack of statutory protections. Thanks to UPEPA’s comprehensive framework, South Dakota’s score will see a significant improvement in the next evaluation.
The new law introduces several critical procedural safeguards. It allows defendants targeted by a SLAPP to file a special motion for expedited review and early dismissal. To protect individuals from being financially drained during this process, the law mandates a discovery stay that halts costly and burdensome discovery proceedings until the motion is fully resolved. Additionally, the legislation features a robust cost recovery provision ensuring that defendants who successfully have a SLAPP dismissed can recover their attorney’s fees and court costs, deterring plaintiffs from filing abusive lawsuits in the first place.
The Institute for Free Speech commends the South Dakota Legislature, Governor Rhoden, and the bill’s primary sponsors, Senator Amber Hulse and Representative Logan Manhart, for their decisive action to protect the constitutional rights of all South Dakotans.
To learn more about our country’s anti-SLAPP statutes, read the Institute’s 2025 Anti-SLAPP Report Card here.
