Comparator does not sort correctly

I am trying to write a test to highlight the behavior of the following class. This is a comparator for a website, but for some reason the "propertiesCreatedBy" section is not working. This is a very strange problem as long as the rest of the fields work and can be sorted correctly, but when trying to sort on this column, the order seems random:

     import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.Comparator;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;


public class CaseNoteDTOComparator implements Comparator, Serializable {

    /**
     *
     */
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

    protected class CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal implements Serializable  {
        private String[] properties = null;
        boolean[] shouldReverse = null;

        public CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal(String[] properties, boolean[] shouldReverse) {
            this.properties = properties;
            this.shouldReverse = shouldReverse;
        }

        public int compare(Object obj1, Object obj2) {
            int result = 0;
            for (int i = 0; i < properties.length; i++) {
                JavaBeanNamedPropertyComparator comparator =
                    new JavaBeanNamedPropertyComparator(properties[i], shouldReverse[i]);
                result = comparator.compare(obj1, obj2);
                if(result != ComparatorConstants.EQUAL) {
                    return result;
                }
            }
            //actually object are equals....
            return ComparatorConstants.LESS_THAN;
        }

        public void setDescending(boolean descending) {
            for (int i = 0; i < shouldReverse.length; i++) {
                shouldReverse[i] = descending;
            }
        }
    }

    private static Map comparators = new HashMap();

    //statically initialise comparators
    {
        final String[] propertiesEffectiveDate = { EFFECTIVE_DATE_NAME, CREATED_ON };
        boolean[] shouldReverseEffectiveDate= {false, false};
        comparators.put(EFFECTIVE_DATE_NAME, new CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal(propertiesEffectiveDate, shouldReverseEffectiveDate));

        final String[] propertiesId = { ID_NAME };
        boolean[] shouldReverseId = {false};
        comparators.put(ID_NAME, new CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal( propertiesId, shouldReverseId));

        final String[] propertiesType = { TYPE_NAME, ID_NAME };
        boolean[] shouldReverseType = {false, false};
        comparators.put(TYPE_NAME, new CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal( propertiesType, shouldReverseType));

        final String[] propertiesTitle = { TITLE_NAME, ID_NAME };
        boolean[] shouldReverseTitle = {false, false};
        comparators.put(TITLE_NAME, new CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal( propertiesTitle, shouldReverseTitle));

        final String[] propertiesRecordedVS = { PERSON_LASTNAME_NAME, PERSON_FIRSTNAME_NAME, ID_NAME };
        boolean[] shouldReverseRecordedVS= {false, false, false};
        comparators.put(RECORDED_VS, new CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal( propertiesRecordedVS, shouldReverseRecordedVS));

        final String[] propertiesCreatedBy = { CREATED_BY_LASTNAME_NAME, CREATED_BY_FIRSTNAME_NAME, ID_NAME };
        boolean[] shouldReverseCreatedBy= {false, false, false};
        comparators.put(CREATED_BY_NAME, new CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal( propertiesCreatedBy, shouldReverseCreatedBy));

        final String[] propertiesOrganisation = { ORGANISATION_NAME, ID_NAME };
        boolean[] shouldReverseOrganisation= {false, false};
        comparators.put(ORGANISATION_NAME, new CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal( propertiesOrganisation, shouldReverseOrganisation));

        final String[] propertiesScore = { LUCENE_INDEX_SCORE};
        boolean[] shouldReverseScore = {false};
        comparators.put(LUCENE_INDEX_SCORE, new CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal( propertiesScore, shouldReverseScore));

    }

    private CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal comparator = null;

    public static final String ID_NAME = "id";
    public static final String EFFECTIVE_DATE_NAME = "effectiveDate";
    public static final String TYPE_NAME = "displayCaseNoteType";
    public static final String TITLE_NAME = "title";
    public static final String PERSON_LASTNAME_NAME = "personLastName";
    public static final String PERSON_FIRSTNAME_NAME = "personFirstName";
    public static final String RECORDED_VS = "recordedVS";
    public static final String CREATED_BY_NAME = "createdBy";
    public static final String CREATED_BY_FIRSTNAME_NAME = "createdByFirstName";
    public static final String CREATED_BY_LASTNAME_NAME =  "createdByLastName";
    public static final String CREATED_ON = "createdOn";
    public static final String ORGANISATION_NAME = "organisationName";
    public static final String DEFAULT_FIELD_NAME = EFFECTIVE_DATE_NAME;
    public static final String LUCENE_INDEX_SCORE = "score";

    public CaseNoteDTOComparator(String fieldKeyName, boolean descending) {
        this.comparator = (CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal)comparators.get(fieldKeyName);
        if(comparator==null) {
            this.comparator = (CaseNoteDTOComparatorInternal)comparators.get(DEFAULT_FIELD_NAME);
        }
        comparator.setDescending(descending);
    }

    public int compare(Object obj1, Object obj2) {

        return comparator.compare(obj1, obj2);
    }
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

I've spent several hours looking at the code and experimenting, but can't find what's wrong. More than a test implementation for a class, I'd like to fix it, but can't seem to find the problem. I would really appreciate any hint.

Thank!