¹ “By the Numbers,” CBC News (15 May goog), online: CBC News <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/by-the-numbers-i.8oig37>.

² Pickett, Wyatt, Cross-Border Torts: Canadian-U.S. Litigation Strategies (Markham: LexisNexis, 2013) at 26.Google Scholar

³ Ibid at 220.

⁴ Ibid at 5 [emphasis in original].

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Pickett writes: “‘Forum shopping’ is nothing more than a pejorative way of referring to the process of forum selection” (ibid at 6).

⁷ Ibid at 14.

⁸ Ibid at 5–6.

⁹ For instance, Pickett notes that “actions filed by a plaintiff in state court which possess the requisite diversity between litigants and amounts in controversy may be removed to the federal system by motion of a defendant” (ibid at 7). Pickett, however, fails to mention the concept of remand, whereby a federal court may send an action back to state court in the event that it does not possess jurisdiction over the case. Similarly, Pickett does not discuss a very important limitation on the ability of a defendant to remove an action: that a defendant sued in the state court of his domicile cannot remove an action to federal court. See 28 USC § 1441(b)(2) (2012): “A civil action otherwise removable solely on the basis of the jurisdiction under section 1332(a) of this title may not be removed if any of the parties in interest properly joined and served as defendants is a citizen of the State in which such action is brought.”

¹⁰ Pickett, supra note 2 at 34.

¹¹ For instance, Pickett references International Shoe Co v Washington, 326 US 310 (1945) [International Shoe] multiple times in his discussion of general jurisdiction even though the case, on its facts, dealt with specific jurisdiction (that is, minimum contacts). As such, an unfamiliar reader might be puzzled as to why Pickett keeps referring to International Shoe when discussing general jurisdiction. The answer is that International Shoe first erected the bipartite jurisdictional structure even though general jurisdiction was not relevant or applicable on that case’s facts. Moreover, the language of general jurisdiction derived largely from Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, SA v Hall, 466 US 408 (1984) (“continuous and systematic general business contacts”) is oddly similar to the language of specific jurisdiction from International Shoe: “[T]he activities carried on in behalf of appellant in the State of Washington were neither irregular nor casual. They were systematic and continuous throughout the years in question” (ibid at 320). This similarity in phraseology again has the potential to confuse a Canadian reader who is making a foray into these concepts for the first time.

¹² Likewise, Pickett does not mention corporate registration as providing a basis forjurisdiction, whether general or specific. Compare, for example, The Rockefeller University v Ligand Pharmaceuticals, 581 F Supp (2d) 461 at 467 (SDNY 2008) (“[Defendant’s] unrevoked authorization to do business and its designation of a registered agent for service of process amount to consent to personal jurisdiction in New York”) with Leonard v USA Petroleum, 829 F Supp 882 at 888–89 (SD Tex 1993) (“[b]y registering to do business, a foreign corporation only potentially subjects itself to jurisdiction; it does not subject itself to potential jurisdiction … [i]n complying with the Texas registration statute, USA Petroleum consented to personal jurisdiction in Texas only if the jurisdiction were constitutional”).

¹³ See, for example, Twitchell, Mary, “Why We Keep Doing Business with Doing Business Jurisdiction” (2001) U Chicago Legal F 171.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Pickett, supra note 2 at 40. See also Goodyear Tires Operations, SA v Brown, 131 S Ct 2846 (2011).

¹⁵ Calder v Jones, 465 US 783 (1984).

¹⁶ Keeton v Hustler Magazine, 465 US 770 (1984).

¹⁷ Burger King Corp v Rudzewicz, 471 US 462 (1985).

¹⁸ Indeed, much of the book is geared towards the discussion of more territorial torts, such as negligence and products liability actions, with no mention of torts such as defamation or fraud. With defamation, in particular, American (and Canadian) courts have developed very specific jurisdictional principles, which are not discussed, or even alluded to, in Pickett’s book.

¹⁹ See World-Wide Volkswagen Corp v Woodson, 444 US 286 (1980). See also Asahi Metal Industry Co v Superior Court, 480 US 102 (1987).

²⁰ See J McIntyre Machinery v Nicastro, 131 S Ct 2780 at 2798 (2011) [McIntyre]. Since the Supreme Court did not expressly refer to the two-pronged test, it was unclear in the aftermath of McIntyre whether the test still applied. However, the recent case of Daimler AG v Bauman, 134 S Ct 746 (2014) (US), decided after Pickett’s book was published, confirms that the two-part test is alive and well: “[t]rue, a multipronged reasonableness check was articulated in Asahi, but not as a freefloating test. Instead, the check was to be essayed when specific jurisdiction is at issue. First, a court is to determine whether the connection between the forum and the episode-in-suit could justify the exercise of specific jurisdiction. Then, in a second step, the court is to consider several additional factors to assess the reasonableness of entertaining the case.” Further, Pickett casts his entire analysis of specific jurisdiction as reflecting a tension between the ‘personal subjection’ and ‘administration ofjustice’ approach tojurisdiction (Pickett, supra note 2 at 41). Pickett derives the labels from a 1991 article by Canadian academic Vaughan Black and notes himself that the labels are used in Canada, not the United States. Consequently, it is unclear why Pickett proceeds to analyze the stream of commerce case law (as well as the Canadian cases) with reference to these constructs. It is apparent from the most recent US Supreme Court case on point, McIntyre, that the constitutional debate is one between sovereignty/purposeful availment and due process/fairness. See McIntyre, supra note 20 at 2798, Ginsburg J dissenting (responding to plurality by noting “the constitutional limits on a state court’s adjudicatory authority derive from considerations of due process, not state sovereignty”). Even if the Canadian labels are roughly analogous — which it is not clear that they are — their use in describing the approaches in the United States is unhelpful to understanding the relevant American case law.

²¹ Pickett, supra note 2 at 79.

²² Ibid at 29–30.

²³ Seventy-seven pages are devoted in Chapter 3 to forum-specific choice of law rules. Similarly, sixty-one pages are devoted in Chapter 4 to forum-specific forum non conveniens law. Consequently, 138 out of 347 pages (almost 40 percent of the book) are dedicated to forum-specific law.

²⁴ Edwards v Erie Coach Lines Co, 17 NY (3d) 306 (NY Ct App 2011) [Edwards]. This is particularly strange considering that Pickett spent only three pages discussing US Supreme Court jurisprudence on general jurisdiction.

²⁵ See Pickett, supra note 2 at 149–52.

²⁶ See, for example, Pickett’s lengthy critique of Somers v Fournier (2002), 214 DLR (4th) 611 (Ont CA) and Wong v Wei, [1999] 10 WWR 296 (BCSC) (Pickett, supra note 2 at 214–15). If Pickett’s personal opinion on cases or doctrines were couched in litigation terms (for example: “Here are arguments that a litigator can use to get around [x or y rule]”), then one could understand Pickett venturing into some of these issues. However, Pickett’s thoughts on various cases read like an academic critique within a practice guide, making the book potentially less useful for its intended reader.

²⁷ Tolofson v Jensen, [1994] 3 SCR 1022.

²⁸ For instance, Pickett examines Maine state law, Maine federal law, and general First Circuit case law that might be relevant in Maine federal court (Pickett, supra note 2 at 278–81, 337–38). As with the forum-specific choice of law analysis, Pickett examines forum non conveniens law in each jurisdiction in a non-systematized manner. Many of the cases he discusses involve parties from countries with legal systems that differ significantly from the United States (for example, Turkey, Colombia, and so on). One might question how applicable those precedents are when applied to Canada-US litigation.