A federal jury ordered Swift Transportation, a unit of Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc. (NYSE: KNX), to pay its trucking rival more than $15 million for allegedly poaching drivers who were under contract to CRST Expedited, which is based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
According to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Iowa in March 2017, CRST claims Swift purposely recruited and hired drivers who had completed CRST’s driver training program to obtain their commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs), but were still contractually obligated to work for the motor carrier for 10 months.
In the suit, CRST identified more than 250 drivers who had signed 10-month employment contracts with the carrier that were later recruited by Swift.
Starting in 2016, CRST claims it received more than 150 employment verification requests from Swift, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, for drivers who were still under contract to work for CRST.
Court documents allege that each time CRST received an employment verification for one of its drivers still under contract, it sent correspondence to Swift, “notifying it of the driver’s contractual commitment to CRST.”
The jury found that Swift intentionally and improperly interfered with CRST drivers’ contracts, awarding it $3 million, $5 million in punitive damages and $7.5 million for unjust enrichment.
Supply Chain AI Symposium
Past the hype. Join operators, founders, and enterprise leaders figuring out how to deploy AI in supply chain.
F3: Future of Freight Festival
Industry-defining keynotes, rapid-fire technology demos, and industry leaders networking in experiences across Chattanooga - plus the inaugural F3 Awards Dinner featuring the FreightTech and Shipper of Choice reveals.
Past the hype. Join operators, founders, and enterprise leaders figuring out how to deploy AI in supply chain.
The Old Post • Chicago, IL Register NowIndustry-defining keynotes, rapid-fire technology demos, and industry leaders networking in experiences across Chattanooga - plus the inaugural F3 Awards Dinner featuring the FreightTech and Shipper of Choice reveals.
The Signal at Chattanooga Choo Choo • Chattanooga, TN Register Now
Quran
Swift just lost 5 drivers to Crete that I know of
Thomas
Swift n trouble w the feds again. All the trkg company’s do it stealing drivers from each other and paying high dollar sign on bonuses sad…
Tiffany
It’s Trucking, the only reason they went after a swift is because of the Swift name. Swift as a company also stopped hiring drivers from certain schools because schools were using these companies to train their drivers and then go somewhere else it happens every day all day all the damn time.
But blame the company and not the driver who’s breaking the contract, it’s what people do no accountability. Wether you hate Swift or not this is an absolute joke lawsuit, and someone fishing for money because they’re losing drivers by a practice that happens in the entire Transportation industry.