154
Opinion of the Court
sure, does not generate cancer, Norfolk insists and the principal dissent agrees, "fear of cancer is too unrelated, as a matter of law, to be an element of [an asbestosis sufferer's] pain and suffering." Tr. of Oral Arg. 11; see post, at 172.13
This argument elides over a key connection between Norfolk's conduct and the damages the asbestosis claimants allege as an element of their pain and suffering: Once found liable for "any bodily harm," a negligent actor is answerable in damages for emotional disturbance "resulting from the bodily harm or from the conduct which causes it." Restatement § 456(a) (emphasis added).14
There is an undisputed relationship between exposure to asbestos sufficient to cause asbestosis, and asbestos-related cancer. Norfolk's own expert acknowledged that asbestosis puts a worker in a heightened risk category for asbestos-related lung cancer. App. 470 (affirming that "asbestosis has to be necessary before lung cancer is a problem"). See W. Morgan & A. Seaton, Occupational Lung Diseases 151 (3d ed. 1995) (hereinafter Morgan & Seaton) ("[H]eavy cumulative exposures to asbestos which lead to asbestosis increase the risk of developing lung cancer. . . . [T]here is now considerable evidence which indicates that the risk of lung cancer only increases when asbestosis is present."). See also id., at 341 ("There is no doubt . . . that the presence of asbestosis, at least in smokers, is associated with a significantly in-13 But cf. post, at 187 (Breyer, J.) (recovery permissible when fear of cancer "detrimentally affects the plaintiff's ability to carry on with everyday life and work").
14 See, e. g., Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. McBride, 36 F. 2d 841, 842 (CA6 1930) ("Where both the physical injury and the nervous shock are proximately caused by the same act of negligence, there is no necessity that the shock result exclusively from the physical injury."); see also Goodrich, Emotional Disturbance as Legal Damage, 20 Mich. L. Rev. 497, 504 (1922) ("Recovery has been allowed where there has been physical impact, but it has been frankly said that where there has been impact the damages recoverable are not limited to those resulting therefrom."); Magruder, Mental and Emotional Disturbance in the Law of Torts, 49 Harv. L. Rev. 1033, 1048-1049 (1936).
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