170
Opinion of Kennedy, J.
tion to allow recovery for fear of future illness is antithetical to FELA's goals of ensuring compensation for injuries. Cf. Consolidated Rail Corporation v. Gottshall, 512 U. S. 532, 555 (1994) (describing FELA's "central focus on physical perils"); Metro-North, supra, at 430 (noting that Gottshall relied upon cases involving "a threatened physical contact that caused, or might have caused, immediate traumatic harm"). As a consequence of the majority's decision, it is more likely that those with the worst injuries from exposure to asbestos will find they are without remedy because those with lesser, and even problematic, injuries will have exhausted the resources for payment. Today's decision is not employee protecting; it is employee threatening.
II
When the Court asks whether the rule it adopts has been settled by the common law, the answer, in my view, must be no. The issue before us is new and unsettled, as is evident from the diverse approaches of state and federal courts to this problem. In its comprehensive discussion, the majority cites some authorities that, it must be acknowledged, could be interpreted to support the Court's position. The result it reaches, however, is far from inevitable, and the rule the majority derives does not comport with our responsibility to develop a federal common law that administers FELA in an effective, principled way.
A
I disagree with the Court's conclusion that damages for fear of cancer may be recovered as part of the pain and suffering caused by asbestosis. Ante, at 148. The majority observes that a person who suffers from "a disease" may recover for all "related" emotional distress. Ante, at 147 (courts " 'do permit a plaintiff who suffers from a disease to recover for related negligently caused emotional distress' " (quoting Metro-North, supra, at 432)). While that may be true as a general matter, it begs the question: What relation-
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