diff --git a/changelog.html b/changelog.html
index 340c5d07cc..9744d9c815 100644
--- a/changelog.html
+++ b/changelog.html
@@ -69,6 +69,9 @@ Upcoming changes</a>
   <li class=bug>
     Fixed Maven build error if headless option is set and MAVEN_OPTS empty
     (<a href="https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-10375">issue 10375</a>)
+  <li class=bug>
+    Tests not recognized as failed if test initialization failed
+    (<a href="https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-6700">issue 6700</a>)
 </ul>
 </div><!--=TRUNK-END=-->
 
diff --git a/core/src/main/java/hudson/tasks/junit/SuiteResult.java b/core/src/main/java/hudson/tasks/junit/SuiteResult.java
index 06761acc97..c924cdb978 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/hudson/tasks/junit/SuiteResult.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/hudson/tasks/junit/SuiteResult.java
@@ -123,7 +123,8 @@ public final class SuiteResult implements Serializable {
             parseSuite(xmlReport, keepLongStdio, r, suite);
 
         // child test cases
-        if (root.element("testcase")!=null)
+        // FIXME: do this also if no testcases!
+        if (root.element("testcase")!=null || root.element("error")!=null)
             r.add(new SuiteResult(xmlReport, root, keepLongStdio));
     }
 
@@ -155,11 +156,11 @@ public final class SuiteResult implements Serializable {
         }
 
         for (Element e : (List<Element>)suite.elements("testcase")) {
-            // https://hudson.dev.java.net/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=1233 indicates that
+            // https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-1233 indicates that
             // when <testsuites> is present, we are better off using @classname on the
             // individual testcase class.
 
-            // https://hudson.dev.java.net/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=1463 indicates that
+            // https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-1463 indicates that
             // @classname may not exist in individual testcase elements. We now
             // also test if the testsuite element has a package name that can be used
             // as the class name instead of the file name which is default.
@@ -168,7 +169,7 @@ public final class SuiteResult implements Serializable {
                 classname = suite.attributeValue("name");
             }
 
-            // https://hudson.dev.java.net/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=1233 and
+            // https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-1233 and
             // http://www.nabble.com/difference-in-junit-publisher-and-ant-junitreport-tf4308604.html#a12265700
             // are at odds with each other --- when both are present,
             // one wants to use @name from <testsuite>,
diff --git a/test/src/test/java/hudson/tasks/junit/SuiteResultTest.java b/test/src/test/java/hudson/tasks/junit/SuiteResultTest.java
old mode 100755
new mode 100644
index 8383b103bc..468ceff20e
--- a/test/src/test/java/hudson/tasks/junit/SuiteResultTest.java
+++ b/test/src/test/java/hudson/tasks/junit/SuiteResultTest.java
@@ -27,23 +27,25 @@ import java.io.File;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.net.URISyntaxException;
 
-import junit.framework.TestCase;
-
 import hudson.XmlFile;
-import org.jvnet.hudson.test.HudsonTestCase;
+
+import org.jvnet.hudson.test.Bug;
 
 import java.io.FileWriter;
 import java.io.PrintWriter;
 import java.io.Writer;
 
+import junit.framework.TestCase;
+
 /**
  * Test cases for parsing JUnit report XML files.
  * As there are no XML schema for JUnit xml files, Hudson needs to handle
  * varied xml files.
  * 
  * @author Erik Ramfelt
+ * @author Christoph Kutzinski
  */
-public class SuiteResultTest extends HudsonTestCase {
+public class SuiteResultTest extends TestCase {
 
     private File getDataFile(String name) throws URISyntaxException {
         return new File(SuiteResultTest.class.getResource(name).toURI());
@@ -179,4 +181,19 @@ public class SuiteResultTest extends HudsonTestCase {
         }
     }
 
+    
+    /**
+     * When the testcase fails to initialize (exception in constructor or @Before)
+     * there is no 'testcase' element at all.
+     */
+    @Bug(6700)
+    public void testErrorInTestInitialization() throws Exception {
+        SuiteResult suiteResult = parseOne(getDataFile("junit-report-6700.xml"));
+        
+        assertEquals(1, suiteResult.getCases().size());
+        
+        CaseResult result = suiteResult.getCases().get(0);
+        assertEquals(1, result.getFailCount());
+        assertTrue(result.getErrorStackTrace() != null);
+    }
 }