diff --git a/mailnews/addrbook/src/nsAbCardProperty.cpp b/mailnews/addrbook/src/nsAbCardProperty.cpp
index 4ca3d1bb876..a1211db8b9e 100644
--- a/mailnews/addrbook/src/nsAbCardProperty.cpp
+++ b/mailnews/addrbook/src/nsAbCardProperty.cpp
@@ -347,7 +347,9 @@ NS_IMETHODIMP nsAbCardProperty::GetCardValue(const char *attrname, PRUnichar **v
       break;
   }
 
-  NS_ENSURE_SUCCESS(rv,rv);
+  // don't assert here, as failure is expected in certain cases
+  // we call GetCardValue() from nsAbView::Init() to determine if the 
+  // saved sortColumn is valid or not.
   return rv;
 }
 
diff --git a/mailnews/addrbook/src/nsAbView.cpp b/mailnews/addrbook/src/nsAbView.cpp
index e2737a36b4e..8d28555d2ce 100644
--- a/mailnews/addrbook/src/nsAbView.cpp
+++ b/mailnews/addrbook/src/nsAbView.cpp
@@ -227,7 +227,7 @@ NS_IMETHODIMP nsAbView::Init(const char *aURI, nsIAbViewListener *abViewListener
   // it may not be, if you migrated from older versions, or switched between
   // a mozilla build and a commercial build, which have different columns.
   nsAutoString actualSortColumn;
-  if (generatedNameColumnId.Equals(colID) && mCards.Count()) {
+  if (!generatedNameColumnId.Equals(colID) && mCards.Count()) {
     nsIAbCard *card = ((AbCard *)(mCards.ElementAt(0)))->card;
     nsXPIDLString value;
     // XXX todo