Luke Thomas Elphick was sentenced in Wagga District Court in January after pleading guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death and dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm.

The charges followed a crash at the intersection of the Hume Highway and the Old Hume Highway at Tumblong on August 24, 2019 that killed 60-year-old Albury man Paul Sinclair and injured his wife Gail.

Elphick appealed his sentence on the basis of claims that District Court Judge Gordon Lerve had "erred in relation to his assessment of moral culpability ... failed to properly assess the application for the sentence to be served by way of Intensive Correction Order (ICO); and the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive".

Elphick, then aged 31, had been driving his Toyota HiLux ute along the Old Hume Highway when it collided with a four-wheel-drive towing a camper trailer, which was being driven by Mr Sinclair.

Prior to sentencing, Elphick submitted that his "momentary inattention" on a country road that led to the crash did not meet the level of moral culpability as the same inattention on a busy urban freeway.

Following a Supreme Court hearing earlier this month, Judge of Appeal John Basten and justices Christine Adamson and Michael Walton on Wednesday upheld the District Court's sentence.

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"Just how the applicant came to drive into the side of the vehicle in which the victims were travelling is difficult to comprehend," Judge Basten stated in his decision.

"However, making every allowance for the good character of the applicant, that difficulty does not reduce his culpability.

"There was no error of principle or fact in the careful reasoning of the sentencing judge."

The Supreme Court found that an ICO was not applicable to the case and Judge Lerve had been open to imposing a sentence of three years' jail with a non-parole period of two years.

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