Phyllis Kyllo, Special Administrator of the Estate of Ervin Peterson, Plaintiff and Appellee v. Joyce Panzer…

Summary

The court held that South Dakota statutes granting state employees immunity for negligence in performing ministerial functions violated the state Constitution's open-courts guarantee. Operating a motor vehicle is a ministerial function, so employees could not invoke sovereign immunity against these individual-capacity negligence claims. The court affirmed the trial courts' denial of summary judgment.