How to get around this error related to a CASE statement in my ORDER BY syntax?

I am using SQL Server 2014 and I am querying a linked server.

My T-SQL query stands as follows:

USE MyDatabase

SELECT 

[EMP_CODE],
[NAME],
[ADDRESS]

FROM [xxx.xxx.xx].[HR].[dbo].[EMPLOYEE]

WHERE [EMP_CODE] IN (
'A0025',
'A0045',
'B0008',
 ...
 ...
 'A0096' )

ORDER BY
CASE [EMP_CODE]

WHEN 'A0025' THEN 1
WHEN 'A0045' THEN 2
WHEN 'B0008' THEN 3
...
...
WHEN 'A0096' THEN 68

END

My issue is that I am getting the following error message when running the above T_SQL query:

"Case expressions may only be nested to level 10."

How can I get around this error?

Answer

I don’t know where the nested case expressions are coming from. But an alternative formulation would use JOIN:

SELECT . . .
FROM [xxx.xxx.xx].[HR].[dbo].[EMPLOYEE] e LEFT JOIN
     (VALUES ('A0025', 1), ('A0045', 2), ('B0008', 3), . . .)
     ) v(emp_code, ord)
     ON e.emp_code = v.emp_code
ORDER BY COALESCE(v.ord, 1000000)