When using a try-finally block in methods with return values then the finally block will not always be executed. Here's a script which demonstrates the problem: boolean foo () { try { println "try" // only when next line is removed then the finally-block will be executed if (0 == 1) return false return true } finally { println "finally" } } foo () Output after starting: eddie@saringnb:~$ groovy test.groovy try Finally will only be executed when removing the line " if (0 == 1) return false". I've reported a similar problem for Groovy 1.0 (http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/GROOVY-1663), probably it was not solved completely. BTW: Is there a planning for a bugfix release (e.g. 1.0.1) without new features which just removes these critical bugs? Would be important for production usage. Thanks in advance, Stefan