question

It looks to me as though you're getting a bit confused about the structure of the [`CASE`][1] statement, and have basically written: SELECT CASE WHEN x THEN ... ELSE CASE WHEN x THEN ... building up your big nested CASE scenario. What you could do to simplify your code, and work within the normal `CASE` statement structure is this: SELECT foo = CASE WHEN x1 THEN y1 WHEN x2 THEN y2 ... ELSE z -- use this when none of the others apply END So. In your specific case, try this: UPDATE Claims SET Claims.CustomText94 = CASE WHEN ( Claims.CoverageID = 10 AND c13.CodeID = 10220 AND claims.TypeOfClaimID IS NULL ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + c13.Description ) WHEN ( Claims.CoverageID = 10 AND C13.CodeID = 10220 AND t.DisplayCode = 'IO' ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + C13.Description + '-' + t.DisplayCode ) WHEN ( Claims.CoverageID = 10 AND c13.CodeID = 10223 AND claims.TypeOfClaimID IS NULL ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + c13.Description ) WHEN ( Claims.CoverageID = 10 AND C13.CodeID = 10224 AND claims.TypeOfClaimID IS NULL ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + c13.Description ) WHEN ( claims.CoverageID = 10 AND claims.CustomCode13ID IS NULL AND t.DisplayCode = 'IO' ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + t.Description ) WHEN ( claims.CoverageID = 10 AND c13.CodeID = 10225 AND claims.TypeOfClaimID IS NULL ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + c13.Description ) WHEN ( claims.CoverageID = 10 AND c13.CodeID = 10225 AND t.DisplayCode = 'IO' ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + c13.Description + '-' + t.DisplayCode ) WHEN ( claims.CoverageID = 10 AND c13.CodeID = 10227 ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + c13.Description ) WHEN ( claims.CoverageID = 10 AND c13.CodeID = 10228 ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + c13.Description ) WHEN ( x.CoverageID = 10 AND c12.CodeID = 10241 AND c13.CodeID = 10225 AND claims.TypeOfClaimID IS NULL ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + c12.Description + '-' + c13.DisplayCode ) WHEN ( x.CoverageID = 10 AND c12.CodeID = 10241 AND c13.CodeID = 10225 AND t.DisplayCode = 'IO' ) THEN ( x.DisplayCode + '-' + c12.Description + '-' + c13.DisplayCode + '-' + t.DisplayCode ) END FROM Claims LEFT JOIN codes c12 ON c12.codeid = claims.customcode12id LEFT JOIN codes c13 ON c13.CodeID = claims.customcode13id LEFT JOIN TypeOfClaims t ON t.TypeOfClaimID = Claims.TypeOfClaimID INNER JOIN Coverages x ON x.CoverageID = Claims.CoverageID Hope this helps. [1]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms181765.aspx