truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

In November, Michigan state circuit court judge Robert Colombo Jr. almost single-handedly quashed thousands of apparently bogus lawsuits for asbestos-related injuries by exposing the principal examining doctor as unqualified. Dr. Michael Kelly had diagnosed injuries on 7,323 patients' x-rays over 15 years (earning $500 per screening), which in one sampling was 58 times the abnormality-detection rate of independent radiologists. Judge Colombo found that Kelly is neither a radiologist nor a pulmonologist, had failed the certification test for reading x-rays, and performed lung-function tests improperly 90 percent of the time. On the day Judge Colombo commenced the investigation of Dr. Kelly, plaintiffs' attorneys, realizing they had been busted, promptly withdrew all of their lawsuits except one.