Index: lib/Support/FileCheck.cpp
===================================================================
--- lib/Support/FileCheck.cpp
+++ lib/Support/FileCheck.cpp
@@ -1114,12 +1114,6 @@
       Twine(Pat.getCheckTy() == Check::CheckEmpty ? "-EMPTY" : "-NEXT");
 
   // Count the number of newlines between the previous match and this one.
-  assert(Buffer.data() !=
-             SM.getMemoryBuffer(SM.FindBufferContainingLoc(
-                                    SMLoc::getFromPointer(Buffer.data())))
-                 ->getBufferStart() &&
-         "CHECK-NEXT and CHECK-EMPTY can't be the first check in a file");
-
   const char *FirstNewLine = nullptr;
   unsigned NumNewLines = CountNumNewlinesBetween(Buffer, FirstNewLine);
 
@@ -1155,12 +1149,6 @@
     return false;
 
   // Count the number of newlines between the previous match and this one.
-  assert(Buffer.data() !=
-             SM.getMemoryBuffer(SM.FindBufferContainingLoc(
-                                    SMLoc::getFromPointer(Buffer.data())))
-                 ->getBufferStart() &&
-         "CHECK-SAME can't be the first check in a file");
-
   const char *FirstNewLine = nullptr;
   unsigned NumNewLines = CountNumNewlinesBetween(Buffer, FirstNewLine);
 
Index: test/FileCheck/empty-regex-match-at-start.txt
===================================================================
--- test/FileCheck/empty-regex-match-at-start.txt
+++ test/FileCheck/empty-regex-match-at-start.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,16 @@
+some text
+more text
+
+; RUN: FileCheck %s --check-prefix=NEXT --input-file=%s
+; NEXT:      {{^}}
+; NEXT-NEXT: more text
+
+; RUN: FileCheck %s --check-prefix=SAME --input-file=%s
+; SAME:      {{^}}
+; SAME-SAME: some text
+
+; RUN: echo "" > %t
+; RUN: echo "" >> %t
+; RUN: FileCheck %s --check-prefix=EMPTY --input-file=%t
+; EMPTY:       {{^}}
+; EMPTY-EMPTY: