diff --git a/test/distributed/org/apache/cassandra/distributed/test/metric/TableMetricTest.java b/test/distributed/org/apache/cassandra/distributed/test/metric/TableMetricTest.java
index cfb34e769655..6e748a973c9e 100644
--- a/test/distributed/org/apache/cassandra/distributed/test/metric/TableMetricTest.java
+++ b/test/distributed/org/apache/cassandra/distributed/test/metric/TableMetricTest.java
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.Collection;
+import java.util.Collections;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Set;
@@ -285,7 +286,7 @@ public void unregisterMBean(ObjectName mbeanName, OnException onException)
         @Override
         public Set<ObjectName> queryNames(ObjectName name, QueryExp query)
         {
-            return null;
+            return Collections.emptySet();
         }
 
         @Override