Valid IF statement expressions

Hi all,

I have a CodeIgniter project is currently functioning correctly but i'm not sure how one statement is executing. Here it is:

some_controller class 
If($this->some_model->some_check($email) { execute some code     }

some_model class
public function some_check($email)
{
  $this->db->where('email',$email)'
  return $this->db->get('email_table')->row_array();
}


What i'm confused about is the some_check method, it returns "row_array()" - how does this pass as a condition for the if statement?

Any help appreciated.