diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 8bc4fe2571c..2e10f0bd8f6 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ Release 0.3.0 - Unreleased
    HBASE-808,809 MAX_VERSIONS not respected, and Deletall doesn't and inserts
                after delete don't work as expected
                (Jean-Daniel Cryans via Stack)
+   HBASE-831   committing BatchUpdate with no row should complain
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
    HBASE-801  When a table haven't disable, shell could response in a "user
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HTable.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HTable.java
index 676da7b6b35..9771e0db524 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HTable.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HTable.java
@@ -1252,6 +1252,8 @@ public class HTable {
   public synchronized void commit(final BatchUpdate batchUpdate,
       final RowLock rl) 
   throws IOException {
+    if (batchUpdate.getRow() == null)
+      throw new IllegalArgumentException("update has null row");
     connection.getRegionServerWithRetries(
       new ServerCallable<Boolean>(connection, tableName, batchUpdate.getRow()) {
         public Boolean call() throws IOException {
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegionServer.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegionServer.java
index fb5eca4cf01..f75acf6820e 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegionServer.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HRegionServer.java
@@ -1129,6 +1129,8 @@ public class HRegionServer implements HConstants, HRegionInterface, Runnable {
   /** {@inheritDoc} */
   public void batchUpdate(final byte [] regionName, BatchUpdate b, long lockId)
   throws IOException {
+    if (b.getRow() == null)
+      throw new IllegalArgumentException("update has null row");
     checkOpen();
     this.requestCount.incrementAndGet();
     HRegion region = getRegion(regionName);