I agree -- however even a character 4-digit year should sort correctly. I wonder about the condition Topic_Date <= getDate(), which compares a VARCHAR with a DATE value. I'm surprised the query even parses. Beyond that, since date/times are nothing more than integers internally, I'm thinking that this compare isn't doing what you think it is. Even if the analyzer figure it out, it would be something like saying '2008' <= '04/15/2008 12:00:00 AM'