The appellant's contention is that the words in s. 5 (1) (c) "who would if sued have been liable" mean "who would have been held liable if he had been sued by the injured plaintiff at the time when the third party claim was made" and if that is the correct way to construe the subsection, the pleas are good. The contention is based upon what was said by Lord Reid in George Wimpey & Co. Ltd. v. British Overseas Airways Corporation [1] . The facts in that case were that a person who was an employee of the Corporation was injured in a collision between a vehicle owned by the Corporation and a vehicle owned by the Company. More than twelve months after the accident he sued the Company, claiming damages for negligence. The Company served a third party notice on the Corporation. Later, however, the plaintiff joined the Corporation as a second defendant. Having been thus joined as a defendant it pleaded in answer to the plaintiff's claim that the latter's action against it was barred by the Limitation Act which fixed one year from the accrual of the cause of action as the period of limitation in the case of a claim against a public authority. This defence succeeded and judgment was given in favour of the Corporation. The plaintiff, however, recovered judgment against the Company which then sought to recover contribution from the Corporation. The relevant statutory provision which was under consideration corresponded with s. 5 (1) of the New South Wales Act. The majority of their Lordships (Viscount Simonds, Lord Reid and Lord Tucker) held that the Company was not entitled to recover contribution. Viscount Simonds and Lord Tucker were of opinion that there were only two categories of tort-feasors from whom contribution might be recovered under the statute: those who had been sued to judgment by the injured person and those who had not been sued by that person but who would have been held liable to him had he sued them. The Corporation had been sued by the injured plaintiff and had been held not to have been liable to him. It did not, therefore, fall into either category. Lord Reid made a different approach to the matter. He considered that the words had a temporal connotation. In deciding whether the tort-feasor from whom contribution was sought would, if sued by the injured person, have been held liable it was necessary to determine when it was that that hypothetical proceeding was to be presumed to have occurred. At one time liability might exist, at another it might not. His Lordship thought that the words referred either to the time when the tort-feasor claiming contribution was sued by the injured plaintiff or else when the claim for contribution was made. It was unnecessary for his Lordship to decide finally which of these alternative interpretations was the correct one because, whichever was adopted, the claim for contribution would on the facts of the case be barred by the lapse of time. Viscount Simonds' reasons for holding that the Corporation was not liable to make contribution made it unnecessary for him to discuss the point but he said that if it had been necessary to decide it he would have accepted Lord Reid's conclusion. Lord Porter and Lord Keith of Avonholm considered that the Company was entitled to contribution from the Corporation. Lord Keith of Avonholm was of opinion that the words "if sued" referred "to a time at which the words will be given efficacy in all cases, a time at which the question of liability for the damage can be the sole issue to the exclusion of all special defences" [1] . From this I take it that his Lordship considered that a claim for contribution might be maintained successfully if the tort-feasor against whom it was made would have been held liable to the plaintiff at any time after the latter's cause of action came into existence. This, I think, was also Lord Porter's view.