Cite as: 512 U. S. 532 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
any event, we discern from FELA and its emphasis on protecting employees from physical harms no basis to extend recovery to bystanders outside the zone of danger. Cf. Gaston v. Flowers Transp., 866 F. 2d 816, 820-821 (CA5 1989).
Respondents decry the zone of danger test as arbitrarily excluding valid claims for emotional injury. But "[c]haracterizing a rule limiting liability as 'unprincipled' or 'arbitrary' is often the result of overemphasizing the policy considerations favoring imposition of liability, while at the same time failing to acknowledge any countervailing policies and the necessary compromise between competing and inconsistent policies informing the rule." Cameron v. Pepin, 610 A. 2d 279, 283 (Me. 1992). Our FELA cases require that we look to the common law when considering the right to recover asserted by respondents, and the common law restricts recovery for negligent infliction of emotional distress on several policy grounds: the potential for a flood of trivial suits, the possibility of fraudulent claims that are difficult for judges and juries to detect, and the specter of unlimited and unpredictable liability. Although some of these grounds have been criticized by commentators, they all continue to give caution to courts. We believe the concerns that underlie the common-law tests, and particularly the fear of unlimited liability, to be well founded.
Perhaps the zone of danger test is "arbitrary" in the sense that it does not allow recovery for all emotional distress. But it is fully consistent with our understanding of the statute. And for the reasons discussed above, we conclude that the policy considerations of the common law as they are embodied in the zone of danger test best accord with the concerns that have motivated our FELA jurisprudence.
IV
Because the Third Circuit applied an erroneous standard for evaluating claims for negligent infliction of emotional
557
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