South Dakota

Johnson Janklow Abdallah is a trusted personal injury and litigation law firm based in Sioux Falls with a team of lawyers with over 100 years of combined experience. A peer confirms, “If there is any litigation of note coming through South Dakota, Johnson Janklow are going to have a piece of it in some way.” A client offers support with, “Their strength was that they were always prepared. They considered all possible outcomes and evaluated the correct path to take every time.”
     Steve Johnson, Scott Abdallah and Shannon Falon used that knowhow when successfully representing a married couple who challenged the construction of a McMansion, which violated city building codes, near their home in McKennan Park in Sioux Falls. In January 2018, the South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed a circuit court’s grant of injunctive relief. Aballah has been representing LL Funds, which brought suit on behalf of the GSAA Home Equity Trust 2006-2 against Wells Fargo and Saxon Mortgage Services for alleged breach of obligations to the certificate holders of the Trust when they engaged in robo-signing practices in connection with foreclosures of mortgages held by the Trust. Johnson and Falon have assisted in representing the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe in South Dakota in an action against the State of South Dakota challenging the constitutionality of the State's attempts to charge sales and use tax on transactions occurring at the Tribe’s businesses located on its sovereign reservation. In December 2015, the United States District Court denied the State’s motion to dismiss the pleadings and in 2017, the District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the tribe. The State appealed, and the case was orally argued before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in February 2018 and is now awaiting a ruling. Russell Janklow led a team that, in 2017, filed a major wrongful death action arising from a fatal explosion that occurred at a soybean processing plant. As a result of the explosion that killed the husband of the firm's client, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued substantial fines against South Dakota Soybean Processors LLC and CCM Welding Repair and Fabrication. The case was mediated in 2018 and ultimately resolved for a confidential amount.