Cite as: 521 U. S. 424 (1997)
Syllabus
unless the distress falls within specific categories that amount to recovery-permitting exceptions; and FELA § 1, mirroring many States' law, allows recovery for such distress where a plaintiff satisfies the common law's "zone of danger" test, which permits plaintiffs to recover for emotional injury if they sustain a physical impact from, or are placed in immediate risk of physical harm by, a defendant's negligence. Pp. 428-430. (b) The "physical impact" to which Gottshall referred does not include a simple physical contact with a substance that might cause a disease at a substantially later time—where that substance, or related circumstance, threatens no harm other than that disease-related risk. First, each of the many state cases that Gottshall cited in support of the "zone of danger" test involved a threatened physical contact that caused, or might have caused, immediate traumatic harm. Second, Gottshall's language, read in light of this precedent, seems similarly limited. Third, with only a few exceptions, common-law courts have denied recovery for emotional distress to plaintiffs who, like Buckley, are disease and symptom free. Fourth, general policy reasons to which Gottshall referred in explaining why common-law courts have restricted recovery for certain classes of negligently caused harms, see 512 U. S., at 557, are present in this case. Thus, there is no legal basis for adopting the Second Circuit's emotional distress recovery rule. Pp. 430-436. (c) Buckley's several arguments in reply—that his evidence of exposure and enhanced mortality risk is as strong a proof as an accompanying physical symptom of genuine emotional distress, that a series of common-law cases support his position, and that the FELA's "humanitarian" nature warrants a holding in his favor—are unpersuasive. Pp. 436-438. 2. Buckley has not shown that he is legally entitled to recover medical monitoring costs. Insofar as the Second Circuit's opinion suggests it intended to apply the basic damages law principle that a plaintiff can recover medical expenses reasonably related to an underlying injury, the holding that the emotional distress here is not a compensable injury also requires reversal on this point. Insofar as the court rested its holding upon the broader ground that medical monitoring costs themselves represent a separate negligently caused economic injury for which FELA recovery is possible, it suggests the existence of a tort law cause of action permitting the recovery of medical cost damages in a lump sum and irrespective of insurance, a holding beyond the bounds of the "evolving common law" as it currently stands. Gottshall, supra, at 558. The cases authorizing recovery for medical monitoring for asymptomatic plaintiffs do not endorse such a full-blown, traditional tort law cause of action, but have instead suggested, or imposed, special limita-
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