The answer is, this is probably a bug in the BIRT code and can be fixed hopefully by upgrading to a future version.
The work around I suggest, is based on my discovery of the root cause of the exception.
In 4.2.0, I used an aggregative expression inside of a grid element. Updated to 4.3.2, this is where and only when the exception occurs. To fix, I created the same layout and resulting report using a table element and same aggregation expression and no longer receive the exception on no results returned.