If you cause an accident while travelling by air, you might be partly responsible for what happened. This is called contributory negligence. In New Zealand, there's a special law about this called the Contributory Negligence Act 1947. If you're partly responsible for an accident, the court can use this law to decide how much the airline should pay for damages. The court might say the airline doesn't have to pay anything, or they might have to pay only part of the damages. This applies to both local and international flights, as mentioned in the Montreal Convention and the amended Convention.