QUESTION: What common TV reporting practice would lead to the false light claim? Any ideas on how it could it have been avoided?

An Independence couple is suing KSHB-TV Channel 41 after they were depicted in a report about a man charged with duping women into having sex while being filmed.

Chyleina and Cory Herron were victims of the same man in a previous case involving financial fraud and were interviewed by the TV station in 2012, according to the lawsuit filed Monday.

But last year, the man,Mario Ambrose Antoine, was charged by federal prosecutors in Kansas City with conning women into having sex with him in exchange for promises of money and porn film stardom.

However, images from the earlier interview with the Herrons were used in the TV station's reporting of the new case under the banner: "MAN CHARGED WITH TRICKING WOMEN INTO ON-CAMERA SEX."

According to the lawsuit, that suggested "that Chyleina had engaged in sex for the promise of money and with the presumed consent of Cory, an entirely false inference."

The report was also posted on the station's Facebook and YouTube accounts and was seen by people who knew the Herrons, the suit alleges.

After the Herrons contacted the station, the video was removed.

"But the video was available long enough that people saw Chyleina identified as a victim of trickery willing to have sex for money and that it was picked up and posted by a significant number of websites, some of which have refused or failed to remove the clip," according to the suit filed by attorneys Arthur Benson and Jamie Lansford.

The suit alleges that the report cast the Herrons in a false light that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.

The suit seeks an unspecified amount for causing the couple to suffer mental distress, emotional shame, emotional suffering, humiliation, embarrassment, insult, and inconvenience.

A spokeswoman for the station's parent company, E.W. Scripps, said Tuesday that the company cannot comment on pending litigation.