A 50-year-old Cairns shipyard foreman who broke his wrist at work has won nearly $320,000 in compensation.

Richard Garth lodged the compensation claim against his employer BSE Maritime Solutions in January last year after tripping on a metal box at the shipyard in mid-2012.

In a judgement handed down in the District Court today, documents reveal: “At 1:20am on 31 August 2012, in the course of the locking up process, the plaintiff (Mr Garth) tripped on a fixed metal box structure outside the ‘smoko room’, lost balance and fell onto and injured his left wrist.

“The plaintiff claims that he suffered a disruption and/or tear of the dorsal ulna capsule, and tissue injury to the left wrist.”

Mr Garth also described “hellish pain” and “throbbing” in his left wrist and detailed his struggle not to “black out”. He also developed a “big lump the size of an egg on the outside of the wrist”.

In its defence, BSE stated that Mr Garth contributed to the incident by his own negligence, including failing to watch where he stepped and failing to use a torch to “illuminate his path of travel”.

District Court Judge Dean Morzone QC sided with Mr Garth, saying he continued to “suffer loss of strength and movement, swelling and aching pain in the left wrist, with sharper pain when aggravated”.

In his findings published today, Judge Morzone said: " In my view the plaintiff has an overly optimistic view of his future, without fully appreciating his future predicament with a reduced earning capacity, uncertainty of degeneration and surgical outcomes, and the risks of being exposed on the open labour market.

“Having regard to the whole of the evidence, I find that the plaintiff is significantly limited in employment opportunities in the future.”

Mr Garth was awarded a total of $318,183 in compensation and costs, which included $250,000 for future economic loss and other costs associated with medical needs.