diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 6a651282c..ceea98ed3 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
 - [#599](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/599): datadog plugin tags not working.
 - [#600](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/600): datadog measurement/field name parsing is wrong.
 - [#602](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/602): Fix statsd field name templating.
+- [#612](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/pull/612): Docker input panic fix if stats received are nil.
 
 ## v0.10.1 [2016-01-27]
 
diff --git a/plugins/inputs/docker/docker.go b/plugins/inputs/docker/docker.go
index 1b95d9dae..6814c190a 100644
--- a/plugins/inputs/docker/docker.go
+++ b/plugins/inputs/docker/docker.go
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ package system
 
 import (
 	"fmt"
+	"log"
 	"strings"
 	"sync"
 	"time"
@@ -112,12 +113,19 @@ func (d *Docker) gatherContainer(
 	}
 
 	go func() {
-		d.client.Stats(statOpts)
+		err := d.client.Stats(statOpts)
+		if err != nil {
+			log.Printf("Error getting docker stats: %s\n", err.Error())
+		}
 	}()
 
 	stat := <-statChan
 	close(done)
 
+	if stat == nil {
+		return nil
+	}
+
 	// Add labels to tags
 	for k, v := range container.Labels {
 		tags[k] = v