I'm considering a defamation lawsuit for an LLC, and learned a lot about how famously hard they are to prove. I've got financial records that show harm from before and after the defamation began, screenshots that show it was public, but I am not sure the false statement I have is false enough to qualify.

Let's say I own a dairy and make cheese. A local amateur cheese maker began to criticize the dairy. The criticism is mostly opinion, and therefore not defamatory, but they put a huge effort in making sure all local cheese eaters know their opinion. At one point, I am able to talk with them about their issues with my dairy. I send them a long text after the conversation following up on points they made, context for why my cheese is made the way it is. They post publicly that I blamed their concerns on marketing. We didn't talk about marketing. It's a false statement, but I'm not sure its false enough for defamation.

It would be mortifying to go up against this person who has deeply damaged the public reputation of both my cheese and me and lose. I want to do as much due diligence as possible to ensure that any suit I file has its best chances to be successful. I've got a consultation with a lawyer booked, but wanted to also get a sense of whether this was something that is so obviously one way or another that it's not worth consulting about.

Here's my questions.

1. Does a public falsehood that damages the reputation of a business but is mostly tangential to the business meet the standard of defamation?

2. I suspect there is a lot a lot more statements they made publicly over social media that i didn't have access to once they blocked me, but local cheese lovers read. If a suit reaches the discovery phase but nothing substantive turns up, can I call it off?

3. Can a public apology and retraction be part of the terms of a defamation suit?