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Civil Rights Department v. Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division Three · 2026 · Published opinion (PDF)
Summary for general education only—not legal advice. This is not a Workplace Rights Advocacy case result. See Case Results for the firm’s own verdicts and settlements.
A partially published California Court of Appeal decision about when the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) may investigate a FEHA complaint involving a worker who lived and worked outside California. A former SpaceX employee filed a CRD charge alleging sex/gender pay and promotion discrimination and retaliation for helping draft an open letter about a hostile work environment, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination. SpaceX hired her for its Redmond, Washington office and argued that Washington managers set pay and promotions and that a Human Resources director decided the termination while in Washington. CRD still needed discovery on whether alleged discrimination occurred or was ratified in California, where SpaceX was then headquartered. The Los Angeles Superior Court granted CRD’s petition to compel compliance with the investigatory subpoena. The Court of Appeal affirmed.
The published analysis separates investigatory power from whether FEHA’s substantive bans ultimately apply. SpaceX treated those as the same question and proposed categorical rules: that FEHA turns only on where the adverse action occurred, or that California labor and employment laws never protect anyone who did not work in California. The court rejected both as compelled by cases such as Kearney, Tidewater, Sullivan, Ward, and Oman. Each statute is construed on its own terms; those decisions do not create an all-purpose bar for out-of-state work. The administrative complaint also did not conclusively place every adverse action in Washington. Campbell v. Arco Marine was distinguishable because the California connections there were settled and headquarters staff had not participated in or ratified the conduct. Here, whether there were enough California ties—including possible California decisionmakers, pay statements issued from California, and California employment paperwork—was still something the subpoena was meant to test.
In plain English: an employer cannot shut down a CRD investigation solely because the complainant lived and worked in another state. FEHA investigation and FEHA liability are different issues, and out-of-state work is not an automatic free pass when the employer has substantial California operations. The opinion does not decide that this worker’s claims succeed on the merits or that FEHA necessarily covers every remote employee of a California company. It holds that SpaceX did not show CRD lacked authority to investigate and to enforce this subpoena. The constitutional discussion in part 2 of the opinion is unpublished. Related practice pages: discrimination, equal pay, retaliation, and wrongful termination.
Related: Discrimination Claims · Equal Pay · Gender Discrimination · Retaliation Claims · Sexual Harassment · Wrongful Termination · Tech Employees