4143 The fact that a plaintiff suing for defamation advertised his services does not make him a public figure; evidence that plaintiff charged defendant for services that he promised to provide without charge and that he threatened to lie to the press about defendant makes defendant's statement that plaintiff is a liar substantially true; statements that defendant does not remember ever meeting plaintiff or having a relationship with him are subjective expressions of opinion rather than provably false factual assertions; a newspaper is not protected by the privilege of making a true report of a public proceeding if there was no official public proceeding; the gist and sting of a statement that 22 complaints were made to a public agency about plaintiff is that an unusually large number of complaints were made, and its falsity is not established by the fact that records of only six such complaints existed; the statement that a professional boasted of a 100% success rate might be defamatory, but was too small a part of a lengthy newspaper article to result in defamation liability, even if false; the fact that plaintiff made orthotics for members of a professional football team more than fifteen years ago does not establish the falsity of a statement that he was not the team's official podiatrist; the fact that plaintiff participated with three other surgeons in an operation on the foot of a tennis star does not establish the falsity of a statement that he did not operate alone on the tennis star's foot.

CARVER v BONDS (Sports Podiatrist) 135 CA4 328 [See: CivC 47; Milkovich v Lorain 497 US 1; Rosenaur v Scherer 88 CA4 260, T/AT 5/01; Standing Committee v Yagman 55 F3 1430; Partington v Bugliosi 56 F3 1147; Gertz v Robert Welch 418 US 323; Vegod v ABC 25 C3 763]