On Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said they were entitled to sue for sexual harassment, based on the content of the messages and the company’s apparent retaliation against them. Even though Musk’s comments were not aimed directly at the eight employees, the court said, they can claim that his words amounted to sexual harassment of them and other workers, and that their firings were acts of retaliation.

A sextet of LGBTQ justices was among the members of the California judiciary who won their retention races on the November 3 ballot. Voters across the state maintained the two members of the California Supreme Court who were on this year’s ballot, as well as all of the appellate court members in their part of the Golden State.

The California Supreme Court has opened a new phase in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s effort to commute every death sentence in the state to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, inviting legal briefs from interested parties and establishing a schedule for arguments over the governor’s constitutional authority to grant sweeping clemency.

(Subscription required) California Supreme Court Justice Kelli M. Evans has emerged as one of the court's most persistent dissenters, pressing her colleagues to take a broader view of racial discrimination, criminal sentencing, and the remedies available under state law.