diff --git a/pmd-java/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/strings/ConsecutiveLiteralAppendsRule.java b/pmd-java/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/strings/ConsecutiveLiteralAppendsRule.java
index 07a8bcb68c..e07130c240 100644
--- a/pmd-java/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/strings/ConsecutiveLiteralAppendsRule.java
+++ b/pmd-java/src/main/java/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/strings/ConsecutiveLiteralAppendsRule.java
@@ -213,6 +213,11 @@ public class ConsecutiveLiteralAppendsRule extends AbstractJavaRule {
                     ASTLiteral literal = suffix.getFirstDescendantOfType(ASTLiteral.class);
                     if (literal != null && literal.isStringLiteral()) {
                         result++;
+                    } else {
+                        // if it was not a String literal that was appended, then we don't
+                        // have a consecutive literal string append anymore and we can skip
+                        // checking the remainder of the initializer
+                        break;
                     }
                 }
             }
diff --git a/pmd-java/src/test/resources/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/strings/xml/ConsecutiveLiteralAppends.xml b/pmd-java/src/test/resources/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/strings/xml/ConsecutiveLiteralAppends.xml
index 82c4bc31d3..c2143533c3 100644
--- a/pmd-java/src/test/resources/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/strings/xml/ConsecutiveLiteralAppends.xml
+++ b/pmd-java/src/test/resources/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/strings/xml/ConsecutiveLiteralAppends.xml
@@ -1282,6 +1282,20 @@ public class ConsecutiveLiteralAppendsRuleTest {
     public void appendChar(final StringBuilder s) {
         // do nothing
     }
+}
+        ]]></code>
+    </test-code>
+    <test-code>
+        <description>#1401 False positive for StringBuilder.append called with constructor</description>
+        <expected-problems>0</expected-problems>
+        <code><![CDATA[
+public class Foo {
+    public String foo(final String value)
+    {
+        StringBuilder s = new StringBuilder("start:").append(value).append(":end");
+
+        return s.toString();
+    }
 }
         ]]></code>
     </test-code>
diff --git a/src/site/markdown/overview/changelog.md b/src/site/markdown/overview/changelog.md
index 892cef0f44..81e6e39677 100644
--- a/src/site/markdown/overview/changelog.md
+++ b/src/site/markdown/overview/changelog.md
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
 *   [#1370](https://sourceforge.net/p/pmd/bugs/1370/): ConsecutiveAppendsShouldReuse not detected properly on StringBuffer
 *   [#1371](https://sourceforge.net/p/pmd/bugs/1371/): InsufficientStringBufferDeclaration not detected properly on StringBuffer
 *   [#1384](https://sourceforge.net/p/pmd/bugs/1384/): NullPointerException in ConsecutiveLiteralAppendsRule
+*   [#1401](https://sourceforge.net/p/pmd/bugs/1401/): False positive for StringBuilder.append called with constructor
 *   [#1402](https://sourceforge.net/p/pmd/bugs/1402/): Windows-Only: File exclusions are not case insensitive
 
 **API Changes:**