diff --git a/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/CheckStyleTask.java b/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/CheckStyleTask.java
index 6ae4d3fa2..0bcfdc84d 100644
--- a/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/CheckStyleTask.java
+++ b/src/checkstyle/com/puppycrawl/tools/checkstyle/CheckStyleTask.java
@@ -423,7 +423,9 @@ public class CheckStyleTask
         public AuditListener createListener(Task aTask)
             throws IOException
         {
-            if (E_XML.equals(mFormatterType.getValue())) {
+            if (mFormatterType != null
+                && E_XML.equals(mFormatterType.getValue()))
+            {
                 return createXMLLogger(aTask);
             }
             else {