Deception is the act of deliberately causing somebody to accept something as true that is not true. It is an action that hides the truth. © Copyright, National Consumer Law Center, Inc., All rights reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Policy National Consumer Law Center and NCLC are trademarks of National Consumer Law Center, Inc. Deception is the second episode of the fourth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and the sixty-eighth episode overall. A drawing made by a 5-year-old girl leads SVU to investigate her mother (who is an actress) of sexually abusing her teenage stepson. Sign in to read what others are saying and share your thoughts. Different laws of deception incorporate different rules of interpretation. Depending on the cause of action, legal liability might turn either on a statement’s literal meaning or on contextually determined implied meanings. And a few laws of deception also impose legal default representations. Deception in law is more than just an untruth; it is a false representation of a significant fact, made with intent, that a victim reasonably relies on, resulting in tangible harm or damages. The law of deception is the body of laws that address acts and omissions that wrongfully cause others to hold false beliefs. So defined, the law of deception cuts across traditional doctrinal boundaries.