"The state Supreme Court ... allowed thousands of San Francisco city employees and retirees to regain increases in future pensions that voters had sought to eliminate. A lower-court ruling had restored the increases for employees who retired after November 1996 and for future retirees, and the [California] Supreme Court] denied the city's appeal. The court also denied an appeal by a lawyer for the workers, who had wanted a ruling that eliminated the cutbacks for earlier retirees."