Cite as: 512 U. S. 532 (1994)
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
strued the FELA's injury requirement, 988 F. 2d, at 368, citing Urie, 337 U. S., at 181-182. The FELA, the Court of Appeals concluded:
"imposes upon carriers a higher standard of conduct and has eliminated many of the refined distinctions and restrictions that common law imposed to bar recovery (even on meritorious claims). FELA liability and common law liability are thus different." 988 F. 2d, at 369.
Accordingly, the Court of Appeals "refused to designate a particular common law test as the test" applicable in FELA cases. Id., at 365. Instead, the court looked to the purposes of those tests: to distinguish "the meritorious [claim] from the feigned and frivolous," id., at 369, and to assure that liability for negligently inflicted emotional distress does not expand "into the 'fantastic realm of infinite liability.' " Id., at 372, quoting Amaya v. Home Ice, Fuel & Supply Co., 59 Cal. 2d 295, 315, 379 P. 2d 513, 525 (1963); see also 988 F. 2d, at 381-382.
FELA jurisprudence, the Court of Appeals reasoned, has evolved not through a "rules first" approach, but in the traditional, fact-bound, case-by-case common-law way. See id., at 371. The court therefore undertook to determine "whether the factual circumstances [in Gottshall's case] provide a threshold assurance that there is a likelihood of genuine and serious emotional injury." Ibid. "[O]ne consideration" in that inquiry, the court said, "is whether plaintiff has a 'solid basis in the present state of common law to permit him to recover.' " Ibid., quoting Outten v. National Railroad Passenger Corp., 928 F. 2d 74, 79 (CA3 1991).
Gottshall's claim, the Court of Appeals held, presented the requisite "threshold assurance." His emotional distress, diagnosed by three doctors as major depression and posttraumatic stress disorder, 988 F. 2d, at 374, was unquestionably genuine and severe: He was institutionalized for three weeks, followed by continuing outpatient care; he lost 40 pounds; and he suffered from "suicidal preoccupations, anxi-
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