>Cetin and Chad,
>I get the error:
>cStatus is not unique and must be qualified in both of your solutions.
>
>Perhaps this is because I am using VFP7.0. I am NOT using SQL server. Would that make a difference?
>Thanks,
>John

John,
Hearing of cStatus for the first time :) Anyway then precede it with alias to resolve ambiguity. ie:

select a.cid, a.cinmate_number, ;
 b.cinmates_id, b.ttxndatetm, b.txnstatus ;
 from INMATES a ;
   inner join ACCT_EVENTS b ;
        on a.cid = b.cinmates_id ;
 where b.txnStatus= 'OPEN' AND ttoc(b.ttxndatetm,1) = ;
   (select max(ttoc(ttxndatetm,1)) from ACCT_EVENTS c ;
     where b.cinmates_id = c.cinmates_id)

PS: Do not undertake ttoc() usage when comparing datetimes. It's purposefully there.
Cetin