Why it failed

Inverse condemnation requires a taking or damaging of private property for public use. That element is where the case ended:

“Applying the use by the public test, the Cement Plant's prior surface mining operations and resulting minerals were for proprietary and commercial use, not for ‘public use.’ Under these facts, Plaintiffs cannot satisfy the ‘public use’ element of an inverse condemnation claim.”

The State mined gypsum to sell it. That the miner happened to be a state entity did not convert a commercial operation into a public use, and the constitutional theory depends entirely on that characterisation.

The conclusion: “We affirm the circuit court's grant of summary judgment because Plaintiffs have failed to prove that a genuine issue of material fact exists regarding whether the Cement Plant's activities constitute a taking or damaging of private property for public use.”

What the court expressly did not decide

This is the part that matters most for anyone reading the case as precedent:

“Based upon our conclusion that the State's activities in this case relating to the mining and ownership of the subject property did not constitute a taking or damaging of private property for a public use, Plaintiffs have not established a claim for inverse condemnation. We need not address Plaintiffs' claims of strict liability, nor the State's claims that the action should also be dismissed on the basis of causation, standing, or that the action is untimely under SDCL 15-3-1.”

Strict liability for an abnormally dangerous activity was pleaded and left undecided. So were causation, standing and the limitations defence. The court also added, unusually: “While we acknowledge the devastating and sympathetic circumstances in which Plaintiffs find themselves, our review is limited to the claims before us, and Plaintiffs have not presented viable claims against the State in the present action.”

The phrase “in the present action” is carrying weight there.

What a South Dakota community should take from it

The constitutional route against the State is closed on these facts. Where a public body acted commercially rather than for a public use, the takings clause does not reach the consequences, however severe. That is the holding, and it is a clean one.

Everything else remains untested. Strict liability, negligence, failure to disclose, developer and seller liability — none of those were adjudicated here. A subdivision in a former mining or reclaimed area reading this case should read it for what it forecloses, which is narrower than the outcome suggests.

The disclosure layer is where this starts. The developers knew about the mines. South Dakota's seller disclosure statement was amended in 2025 by SB 171 to add questions about historic-property designation and historic districts — subsurface and mining history is a separate question, and the resale packet is where an association's role in this begins. Our estoppel and resale page covers what changes hands at closing.

Common elements have no separate protection. Streets, drainage and shared infrastructure in a subdivision like this are typically the association's or the municipality's to maintain, and the cost of ground movement under them lands as a special assessment. Our reserve studies page covers what funds that, which in South Dakota is whatever the declaration requires and nothing more.

What to watch next

Whether the undecided theories are pursued in a further action, and against whom. The opinion's careful enumeration of what it did not reach reads less like a closing than a map.