See attached for test case.

In a typical maven project, in folder main/resources/META-INF/persistence.xml, a persistence unit is defined, with 'hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=validate'.
For testing purposes, in folder src/test/resources/META-INF/persistence.xml, a persistence unit with same name is defined, with 'hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=create'.

Unit tests are falling, because no table exists. Unit tests will pass after any of the 2 changes:

1. update hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto to 'create' in main/resources/META-INF/persistence.xml
2. switch hibernate version to 4.3.5.Final.

Thus, properties from main/resources/META-INF/persistence.xml are considered in maven test phase, and not from test/resources/META-INF/persistence.xml. This can be reproduced in hibernate orm version 5.2.10.Final, and not 4.3.5.Final.