diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index 18979cfa..7c1c22f4 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -1,3 +1,18 @@
+2.4.1 (unreleased)
+------------------
+
+New Features
+^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Other Changes and Additions
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+Bug Fixes
+^^^^^^^^^
+
+- Fixes a crash when attempting to filter an already-empty ImageFileCollection,
+  instead simply returning an empty ImageFileCollection.  [#80x]
+
 2.4.0 (2022-11-16)
 ------------------
 
diff --git a/ccdproc/image_collection.py b/ccdproc/image_collection.py
index 344bd3ae..a94f6e2c 100644
--- a/ccdproc/image_collection.py
+++ b/ccdproc/image_collection.py
@@ -366,6 +366,10 @@ def files_filtered(self, **kwd):
         Value comparison is case *insensitive* for strings, whether matching
         exactly or matching with regular expressions.
         """
+        # If the collection is empty, self.summary == None; return empty list
+        if self.summary is None:
+            return []
+
         # force a copy by explicitly converting to a list
         current_file_mask = self.summary['file'].mask.tolist()