The plaintiff claimed damages from his employer pursuant to s. 135 of the Accident Compensation Act 1985 for back injury sustained in a number of separate incidents. The trial judge found that the first of these incidents had caused significant injury which had been aggravated in the subsequent incidents. He assessed damages as a global sum and apportioned the global sum among each of the incidents and among certain other incidents for which no compensation had been claimed. The judge apportioned 45% of the sum to the injury resulting from the first incident, 20% to injury resulting from the non-compensable incidents and the balance to the injuries resulting from the other compensable incidents. He reduced the damages in respect of the first incident by 20% for contributory negligence because of the plaintiff's “inadvertence, inattention or misjudgment”. In respect of the later incidents, damages were reduced by one third or a half for contributory negligence as the plaintiff, by then a leading hand, was “more in control of his own destiny”. Damages were thus assessed at $70,200 and the plaintiff appealed against this assessment.