The seam documentation says anonymous wrote : noSelectionLabel ? specifies the (optional) label to place at the top of list | (if required="true" is also specified then selecting this value will cause a | validation error) so try <h:selectOneMenu required="false" value="#{rstReportHome.specialFirm}" id="firm"> I'm not sure if JSF will submit a null to setSpecialFirm() when the non-selection is selected, so you may have to adapt the form's action method to check for this situation and create a new automatic entity. P.S. You don't need private Firm specialFirm; inside RstReportHome.java. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4102585#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...