Error on the author's part probably or how the assertions are run

I do the same.

Usually I'd suggest to write the return in the same line after the if instead to better indicate it's an if body that is valid for one line only. Never forget that goto fail bug ;-)

I highly recommend using curly brackets { } for the if block for better readability, so the code reviewer won't be confused, like for example "why there are two returs?" for this sample code.