False Light Meaning

(law) A cause of action arising under the common law where a person is portrayed in a way which, while not technically false, is misleading and likely to cause embarrassment to that person.

Example: 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, ch. 11:
  To the untrue man, the whole universe is false—it is impalpable—it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow.
1883, George MacDonald, Donal Grant, ch. 58:
  It was not I, but these things working in me—on my brain, making me see things in a false light!
1920, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, The New Jerusalem, ch. 13:
  Some of the charges against them . . . are due merely to the false light in which they are regarded.
2013 April 6, Richard A. Oppel Jr, "Taping of Farm Cruelty Is Becoming the Crime," New York Times (retrieved 22 May 2015):
  Don Lehe, a Republican state representative from a rural district in Indiana, said online videos can cast farmers in a false light and give them little opportunity to correct the record.
2015 May 20, "Model Janice Dickinson Sues Bill Cosby For Defamation," CBS Los Angeles (retrieved 22 May 2015):
  Dickinson’s lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court seeks unspecified damages on defamation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims.