Legal Question in Personal Injury in South Dakota

Re: who is responsible to pay?

You question is whether the insurer for the other driver should pay your claim. If the other driver was cited for failure to yield, you need to find out if she either plead guilty to this offense or was found guilty after a trial. If she went to court and beat the charge, then the citation will be of no use to you. If she went to court and entered a plea known as "nolo contendre", then the citation will not be useful to you either, even if the court found that she violated the law by failing to yield. If a person is found guilty of having committed a traffic offense in an accident, that violation is strong evidence of negligence in a civil action arising out of the accident. If a person is charged but does not plead guilty or is not found guilty at a trial, the fact that they were charged is not admissible, only the conviction is admissible.

Assuming the other drive would be found to have failed to yield the right of way, you have a strong case for liability against her because of her negligence. Her defense to that claim of negligence is to argue that she was not negligent. One way of doing that is to argue that the slippery road conditions caused the accident. This is probably not a good defense absent a showing of unexpected slippery conditions creating a sudden emergency. Absent a sudden emergency, she would have the duty to keep her car under control.

She could also try to claim that you were somehow contributorily negligent, claiming that you went through a red light, or that you were racing through a yellow light. That creates at best a fact question.

You have a decent shot. Keep after her insurer and don't agree to just walk away.