Pennsylvania Supreme Court Ruling

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reached this conclusion, and its reasoning deserves attention when the Court suggests the common law is so well settled:

“[D]amages for fear of cancer are speculative. The awarding
of such damages would lead to inequitable results since
those who never contract cancer would obtain damages even
though the disease never came into fruition.

.          .         .          .         .          .          .          .          .

“In any case, Appellants are not left without a remedy for
their mental anguish. [Pennsylvania case law] permits an
action to be commenced if cancer develops. It is in this
action that Appellants can assert their emotional distress
or mental anguish claims. To allow the asbestos plaintiff
in a non-cancer claim to recover for any part of the
damages relating to cancer, including the fear of
contracting cancer, erodes the integrity of and purpose
behind the [separate] disease rule.” Simmons v. Pacor, Inc.,
543 Pa. 664, 677–678, 674 A. 2d 232, 238–239 (1996).

This analysis is persuasive because it accounts, in a way that the majority’s decision does not, for changes already underway in common-law rules for compensating victims of a disease with a long latency period. This approach surely is more likely to result in an equitable allotment of compensation than the decision of the Court; and this is the rule the Court should adopt to govern the availability of damages for fear of cancer under FELA.