Troublesome ExternalIdentityRef.equals(Object) implementation

in the light of OAK-3508 i looked at the ExternalIdentifyRef class and found the following implementation of Object.equals(Object):

public boolean equals(Object o) {
        try {
            // assuming that we never compare other types of classes
            return this == o || string.equals(((ExternalIdentityRef) o).string);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            return false;
        }
    }

since this class is public and exported as part of a public API, i don't think the assumption made in the code is justified. also i would argue that catching Exception is bad style as is exception driven development. in this particular case it was IMHO perfectly trivial to just get rid of the catch clause altogether.