diff --git a/Project.toml b/Project.toml
index 844289af5..5257e90f8 100644
--- a/Project.toml
+++ b/Project.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 name = "DynamicPPL"
 uuid = "366bfd00-2699-11ea-058f-f148b4cae6d8"
-version = "0.17.0"
+version = "0.17.1"
 
 [deps]
 AbstractMCMC = "80f14c24-f653-4e6a-9b94-39d6b0f70001"
diff --git a/src/compiler.jl b/src/compiler.jl
index c7b310f46..b9c7eead9 100644
--- a/src/compiler.jl
+++ b/src/compiler.jl
@@ -518,16 +518,17 @@ function replace_returns(e::Expr)
     end
 
     if Meta.isexpr(e, :return)
-        # NOTE: `return` always has an argument. In the case of
-        # an empty `return`, the lowered expression will be `return nothing`.
-        # Hence we don't need any special handling for empty returns.
-        retval_expr = if length(e.args) > 1
-            Expr(:tuple, e.args...)
-        else
-            e.args[1]
+        # We capture the original return-value in `retval` and return
+        # a `Tuple{typeof(retval),typeof(__varinfo__)}`.
+        # If we don't capture the return-value separately, cases such as
+        # `return x = 1` will result in `(x = 1, __varinfo__)` which will
+        # mistakenly attempt to construct a `NamedTuple` (which fails on Julia 1.3
+        # and is not our intent).
+        @gensym retval
+        return quote
+            $retval = $(e.args...)
+            return $retval, __varinfo__
         end
-
-        return :(return ($retval_expr, __varinfo__))
     end
 
     return Expr(e.head, map(replace_returns, e.args)...)
diff --git a/test/compiler.jl b/test/compiler.jl
index 0544bb5f6..9dc81ff16 100644
--- a/test/compiler.jl
+++ b/test/compiler.jl
@@ -546,6 +546,13 @@ end
     end
 
     @testset "return value" begin
+        # Make sure that a return-value of `x = 1` isn't combined into
+        # an attempt at a `NamedTuple` of the form `(x = 1, __varinfo__)`.
+        @model empty_model() = return x = 1
+        empty_vi = VarInfo()
+        retval_and_vi = DynamicPPL.evaluate!!(empty_model(), empty_vi, SamplingContext())
+        @test retval_and_vi isa Tuple{Int,typeof(empty_vi)}
+
         # Even if the return-value is `AbstractVarInfo`, we should return
         # a `Tuple` with `AbstractVarInfo` in the second component too.
         @model demo() = return __varinfo__