Came across an interesting issue with Searchlogic. Given the following models:
class Organization < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :contacts default_scope :order => "name" end class Contact < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :association end Contact.search(:first_name_or_last_name_or_assocation_name => "Nicholas", :order => "descend_by_last_name")
The search will actually use the Organization default scope to order the search, i.e. by organization's "name", not contact's "last_name". The fix, unfortunately remove the default scope from the Organization class.
This appears to be an issue with ActiveRecord, not Searchlogic.