Index: /home/bruyeron/workspace3/xfire-trunk/xfire-core/src/main/org/codehaus/xfire/util/stax/W3CDOMStreamReader.java
===================================================================
--- /home/bruyeron/workspace3/xfire-trunk/xfire-core/src/main/org/codehaus/xfire/util/stax/W3CDOMStreamReader.java	(revision 2085)
+++ /home/bruyeron/workspace3/xfire-trunk/xfire-core/src/main/org/codehaus/xfire/util/stax/W3CDOMStreamReader.java	(working copy)
@@ -148,8 +148,9 @@
         getCurrentFrame().ended = true;
         currentEvent = END_ELEMENT;
         endElement();
-        
-        return DOMUtils.getContent(content);
+        String result = DOMUtils.getContent(content);
+        // we should not return null according to the StAx API javadoc
+        return result != null ? result : "";
     }
 
     public String getNamespaceURI(String prefix)
Index: /home/bruyeron/workspace3/xfire-trunk/xfire-core/src/test/org/codehaus/xfire/util/stax/W3CDOMStreamReaderTest.java
===================================================================
--- /home/bruyeron/workspace3/xfire-trunk/xfire-core/src/test/org/codehaus/xfire/util/stax/W3CDOMStreamReaderTest.java	(revision 2085)
+++ /home/bruyeron/workspace3/xfire-trunk/xfire-core/src/test/org/codehaus/xfire/util/stax/W3CDOMStreamReaderTest.java	(working copy)
@@ -101,4 +101,13 @@
         W3CDOMStreamReader reader = new W3CDOMStreamReader(e);
         testElementChild(reader);
     }
+    
+    public void testEmptyElement() throws Exception
+    {
+        Document doc = getDocument();
+        Element e = doc.createElementNS("urn:test","root");
+        W3CDOMStreamReader reader = new W3CDOMStreamReader(e);
+        assertNotNull(reader.getElementText());
+        assertEquals("", reader.getElementText());
+    }
 }