Cite as: 521 U. S. 424 (1997)
Opinion of Ginsburg, J.
A
In my view, the Second Circuit rightly held that a rail-worker negligently exposed to asbestos states a claim for relief under the FELA; recovery in such cases, again as the Court of Appeals held, should reflect the difference in cost between the medical tests a reasonable physician would prescribe for unexposed persons and the monitoring regime a reasonable physician would advise for persons exposed in the way Michael Buckley and his co-workers were. See id., at 1347; see infra, at 450-451 (defining an asbestos-exposed worker's "injury"); see also In re Paoli R. Yard PCB Litigation, 916 F. 2d 829, 849-852 (CA3 1990) (Paoli I), cert. denied sub nom. General Elec. Co. v. Knight, 499 U. S. 961 (1991); In re Paoli R. Yard PCB Litigation, 35 F. 3d 717, 785-788 (CA3 1994) (Paoli II), cert. denied sub nom. General Elec. Co. v. Ingram, 513 U. S. 1190 (1995).
Recognizing such a claim would align the FELA with the "evolving common law." Gottshall, 512 U. S., at 558 (Souter, J., concurring). "[A medical monitoring] action has been increasingly recognized by state courts as necessary given the latent nature of many diseases caused by exposure to hazardous materials and the traditional common law tort doctrine requirement that an injury be manifest." Daigle v. Shell Oil Co., 972 F. 2d 1527, 1533 (CA10 1992); see also Schwartz, Recovery of Damages for Expense of Medical Monitoring to Detect or Prevent Future Disease or Condition, 17 A. L. R. 5th 327 (1994). As the Court understates, several state high courts have upheld medical monitoring cost recovery. See ante, at 440. In a pathmarking opinion, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, interpreting Pennsylvania law, recognized a right to compensation for monitoring "necessary in order to diagnose properly the warning signs of disease." See Paoli I, 916 F. 2d, at 851; see also Paoli II, 35 F. 3d, at 785-788. Similarly, a number of Federal District Courts interpreting state law, and several state courts of first and second instance, have
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