Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Defamation by Half-Truth:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_03_01-2009_03_07.shtml#1236041132
Generally speaking, modern defamation law applies only to false
statements; but at some point a literally true statement may so
strongly carry a false connotation that the speaker could be held
liable for the implied falsehood despite the literal truth. I've often
looked for a good example of this, and I just found one, in an early
1960s case (though it's been around outside the defamation context at
least since [1]1916): The first mate who, upset by his teetotaling
captain, writes in the ship's log,
Captain sober today.
[2]H.P. Grice's work on conversational implicatures, by the way
relates to this.
References
1.
http://books.google.com/books?id=2HoSNv77r9EC&pg=PA13&dq=%22captain+sober+today%22
2. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/implicature/
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