diff --git a/util/check-format-commit.sh b/util/check-format-commit.sh
index 5c9aef8ad961f..206827dd8669a 100755
--- a/util/check-format-commit.sh
+++ b/util/check-format-commit.sh
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ done
 cat $TEMPDIR/results-filtered.txt
 
 # If any findings were in range, exit with a different error code
-if [ -n $TEMPDIR/results-filtered.txt ]
+if [ -s $TEMPDIR/results-filtered.txt ]
 then
     exit 2
 fi