Employment Contract and Termination of Donna from Enterprise Cafe

Question

STAR TREK - ENTERPRISE CAFE

Your Café has now been operating for 12 months and you decide to have a first-year anniversary party called “TREKKY CELEBRATION” You have invited 100 people and have asked them all to dress as their favourite character.

You have had enough of Donna’s mistakes; losing hats, getting you drunk, mixing up signage. You terminate her employment. As she is leaving she fires off the following words to you, “I am going to join another café around the corner and I am going to help make it so much better than your silly Enterprise business.”

You point out to Donna that when she was hired 12 months ago you put into her contract an express clause that says: “I, Donna, agree, upon my leaving the employment of Enterprise Cafe, not to work at any other café within five kilometres’ radius of any Enterprise café, for a period of 24 months.”

She has signed the contract at the end and remembers reading that clause.

Can you enforce the clause against her?

Summary

This question belongs to management and discusses about Trekky Celebration, first-year anniversary celebration of Star Trek Enterprise Café.

Word count: 346