Alberta’s top court has ruled one Alberta utility played a better hand than another in a case interrupted by a judge playing solitaire during one of the proceedings.

In a unanimous decision, the Alberta Court of Appeal rejected a bid by Enmax Corp. to dismiss an arbitration ruling that favoured TransAlta Corp., a case reheard after a judge was seen playing cards during an earlier online hearing.

The case dates back to an eight-month power outage in 2013 at TransAlta ‘s Keephills Unit 1 generating station. TransAlta claimed force majeure and forced Enmax, which owned a power purchase agreement at Keephills, to buy alternative sources of power on the open market.

City of Calgary-owned utility Enmax claimed that arrangement cost it — and by extension Calgary taxpayers — $100 million, while the Balancing Pool, which also sued TransAlta , says the public tab was $40 million.

Both Enmax and the Balancing Pool disputed TransAlta ‘s claim and the case ended up in mediation in 2016, where a decision ultimately favoured TransAlta .

After the pair of plaintiffs contested the ruling, TransAlta  prevailed again in Court of Queen’s Bench in 2019.

That set the stage for a showdown at the Alberta Court of Appeal last summer, which was held online due to pandemic concerns.

During the July 8 hearing, Enmax executives noted one of the three justices, Jolaine Antonio, was playing solitaire, which they said was reflected on the glass behind her.

Antonio apologized  and recused herself from the case, but that wasn’t enough for Enmax and Balancing Pool officials, who subsequently demanded  the hearing be redone with a completely new panel of judges.

Last November, two Court of Queen’s Bench justices ruled the case must be heard anew by different judges.

This week, following a Jan. 27 hearing, the appeals court concluded the absence of some TransAlta records wasn’t enough to overrule the previous decision.

“We find that the chambers judge did not commit a palpable and overriding error in concluding that the failure to order production of these records earlier in the process did not render the entire arbitral process manifestly unfair or deprive (Enmax) of the opportunity to present their case or respond to that of TransAlta,” states the decision dated June 9.

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