Charlie Junior Kawau (27) was jailed for five years and seven months when he was sentenced in the Dunedin District Court on a charge of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm in 2014.
Judge Kevin Phillips imposed a minimum non-parole period of three and a-half years.
More than four years later, Kawau appealed his sentence to the High Court.
Kawau said he had received a phone call from his mother while in prison in which she told him the victim had not had her eye removed, as was stated at sentencing.
Justice Rachel Dunningham heard the prisoner had then taken steps to find a lawyer.
By law, notice of appeal has to be filed within 20 working days of sentencing but Kawau waited nearly 50 times as long to mount his challenge.
Justice Dunningham said his case lacked merit and declined leave to appeal out of time.
However, she still considered the argument.
Kawau's attack on his partner in May 2014 was far from an isolated incident.
"He ... has some 74 convictions, made up of a raft of violent offences, including assaults against females, police and members of the public, along with possession of an offensive weapon," the court heard.
Around May 20, 2014, Kawau subjected the woman to a violent assault, striking her repeatedly about the head, face, eyes, body and arms.
He took her to hospital with severe bruising and swelling to her head and face. Her right eye was swollen and almost completely shut and she had fractured bones in her left wrist, requiring a plaster cast.
Over the following days, the victim suffered such ongoing pain and nausea she had to be readmitted and it was discovered she had lost the use of her right eye.
While Judge Phillips was told the eye had been removed, recent inquiries by the Crown showed that was not the case.
"Medical professionals have sought my consent to remove my damaged eye. However at the time I chose not to follow through with this. I wanted to hang on to the hope that somehow my sight would return," the woman explained.
She now wore a patch and said the eye had shrunk in size.
An optometrist confirmed all vision was lost and the eye turned "upward and outward".
Justice Dunningham said the issue would not have made any difference to Kawau's jail term.
"In my view, no matter what Mr Kawau's understanding, it is clear that the judge sentenced on the basis that she had lost sight in that eye, rather than that the eye was physically removed. The judge sentenced on an entirely correct assumption as to the loss of sight in that eye," she said.
Had the judge granted leave to appeal despite the time lag, she said she would still have dismissed the claim.
