Hi Sergey,
At first, it looked like DISTINCT was working but on the second attempt to use it, it failed. I don't know if the problem is in my understanding or if I have uncovered an anomoly. Here is code which demonstrates the problem:

* this query fails--it gets distinct rows by empPK and location
SELECT DISTINCT iemppk,sortname,clocation;
FROM cureport1;
ORDER BY sortname;
INTO CURSOR Cu1


* this query fails--it gets distinct rows by empPK and location
SELECT DISTINCT iemppk,sortname,iDivPK;
FROM cureport1;
ORDER BY sortname;
INTO CURSOR Cu2

* this query succeeds--it gets distinct rows by empPK only
SELECT DISTINCT iemppk,sortname;
FROM cureport1;
ORDER BY sortname;
INTO CURSOR Cu3

Any idea what causes query 1 and 2 to fail?
If you want, I can email you the input data. It is small.
Thanks, Chaim