I asked a lawyer who would win a libel suit between Al Davis and Lane Kiffin. I asked it because Davis called Kiffin a liar — many times — in the famous news conference when he fired the coach.

For an expert opinion I called a lawyer named Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition and this is what he told me.

“”Calling someone a liar in most contexts is defamatory. It harms a reputation. Davis is not accusing (Kiffin) of lying to him but of lying to the public. Some people might say public figures lie to the public all the time and sometimes the lies might even be justified. So maybe calling someone in this context a liar is not the same as calling someone a liar in business. If you are the owner of a publicly-traded company and make statements to the public that everything is copasetic and the business fails the next day, the law imposes a higher obligation to be truthful. Along the spectrum of horrible things people say about each other it (liar) is not at the far end of the worst things that could be said, especially in professional sports. If it’s cut and dried that the coach lied compared to what the record would show in a trial, the truth is a defense.”

So who would win a libel suit if it ever comes to that?

“My bet would be on Davis,” Scheer said.

— Lowell