diff --git a/parquet-hadoop/src/main/java/org/apache/parquet/format/converter/ParquetMetadataConverter.java b/parquet-hadoop/src/main/java/org/apache/parquet/format/converter/ParquetMetadataConverter.java
index bba7e62e6d..c62d3306fd 100644
--- a/parquet-hadoop/src/main/java/org/apache/parquet/format/converter/ParquetMetadataConverter.java
+++ b/parquet-hadoop/src/main/java/org/apache/parquet/format/converter/ParquetMetadataConverter.java
@@ -437,7 +437,6 @@ private static SortOrder defaultSortOrder(PrimitiveTypeName primitive) {
         return SortOrder.SIGNED;
       case BINARY:
       case FIXED_LEN_BYTE_ARRAY:
-      case INT96: // only used for timestamp, which uses unsigned values
         return SortOrder.UNSIGNED;
     }
     return SortOrder.UNKNOWN;