Opinion ID: 3047711
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: year term of this Contract: (1) Employee

Text: breaches this Contract, or (2) Employee’s employment is terminated for Due Cause, then the total amount of $3,600.00 will be immedi- ately due and payable by Employee to CRST. ... (Emphasis added.) The contract also requires the employee to devote “full time” to his employment with CRST and not to take actions in conflict with CRST’s interests. Drivers Spencer and Chatman signed CRST’s pre- employment driver training agreement and, after completing 3190 CRST VAN EXPEDITED v. WERNER ENTERPRISES some of CRST’s training program, signed CRST’s employment contract.1 In February 2004, after Spencer and Chatman had been employed by CRST for a month, CRST received notice the two drivers had applied for employment with Werner after Werner requested information about them. CRST responded with a series of letters: one on February 9, 2004, advising Werner of the employment contract with Spencer; a second on March 1, 2004, advising Werner of CRST’s contracts with Chatman and Spencer, and Werner’s alleged interference with them; and a third on March 5, 2004, informing Werner that both Spencer and Chatman were employed pursuant to contracts with noncompetition clauses that would last another 300 days. On March 24, 2004, CRST learned that Spencer and Chatman had accepted truck driver positions with Werner.2 CRST alleged that Werner’s hiring of Spencer and Chatman were “but two examples of Werner’s ongoing course of conduct that involves waiting for CRST to train driver [sic] through the DTP, at CRST’s expense, and then soliciting away those trained employees to work for Werner.”