diff --git a/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/api/LocalizedMessage.java b/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/api/LocalizedMessage.java
index cb43810d0..99836c92e 100644
--- a/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/api/LocalizedMessage.java
+++ b/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/api/LocalizedMessage.java
@@ -270,7 +270,7 @@ public final class LocalizedMessage
         final LocalizedMessage lt = (LocalizedMessage) aOther;
         if (getLineNo() == lt.getLineNo()) {
             if (getColumnNo() == lt.getColumnNo()) {
-                return mKey.compareTo(lt.mKey);
+                return getMessage().compareTo(lt.getMessage());
             }
             return (getColumnNo() < lt.getColumnNo()) ? -1 : 1;
         }