The longstanding special-case rule for invocations of 'getClass' has been that the return type is 'Class<? extends |T|>'. See 4.3.2.

15.12.2.6 was modified in JLS 8 to mention this explicitly, but accidentally left off the erasure: 'Class<? extends T>'. There is some interest in making this language change (see JDK-6184881; compare JDK-5004321), but that was not the intent in JLS 8. It's simply a typo, and inconsistent with 4.3.2.