I am facing a similar issue as following post
Empty Div Causing Very Strange Behavior
Answer dint help me much.   fixes alignment issue, but my html code is generated by spring, so I have to find a way to fix it via CSS. I have uploaded sample code at http://jsfiddle.net/sZ77p/1/
If you add an   or any text in empty lines under HTML code and run, alignment comes perfectly. Please help.