From e0f227da3c76f6a3d336b848160609dbeebb2968 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Kakhnovich Raman <roman.kokhnovich@duallab.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2026 10:43:51 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Fix check of parentObject in getParent method in PDStructElem

---
 src/main/java/org/verapdf/pd/structure/PDStructElem.java | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/src/main/java/org/verapdf/pd/structure/PDStructElem.java b/src/main/java/org/verapdf/pd/structure/PDStructElem.java
index 015dd274..a50d31fd 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/verapdf/pd/structure/PDStructElem.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/verapdf/pd/structure/PDStructElem.java
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ public String getExpandedAbbreviation() {
 
 	public PDStructElem getParent() {
 		COSObject parentObject = getKey(ASAtom.P);
-		if (parentObject != null) {
+		if (parentObject != null && !parentObject.empty()) {
 			return new PDStructElem(parentObject);
 		}
 		return null;