This patch comes from in-house and has been submitted upstream:
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?44289

--- groff-1.22.2/src/roff/nroff/nroff.sh.org	2015-02-07 19:56:25.275467577 +0900
+++ groff-1.22.2/src/roff/nroff/nroff.sh	2015-02-07 20:11:22.308246071 +0900
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
   IBM-1047)
     Tloc=cp1047 ;;
   *)
-    case "${LC_ALL-${LC_CTYPE-${LANG}}}" in
+    case "${LC_ALL:-${LC_CTYPE:-${LANG}}}" in
       *.UTF-8)
         Tloc=utf8 ;;
       iso_8859_1 | *.ISO-8859-1 | *.ISO8859-1 | \
@@ -65,6 +65,7 @@
 
 Topt=
 opts=
+disable_error=
 for i
   do
   case $1 in
@@ -72,6 +73,9 @@
       opts="$opts -P-c" ;;
     -h)
       opts="$opts -P-h" ;;
+    -E)
+      opts="$opts -E"
+      disable_error="2> /dev/null" ;;
     -[eq] | -s*)
       # ignore these options
       ;;
@@ -133,6 +137,6 @@
 
 # Load nroff-style character definitions too.
 
-PATH="$GROFF_RUNTIME$PATH" groff -mtty-char $T $opts ${1+"$@"}
+PATH="$GROFF_RUNTIME$PATH" eval groff -mtty-char $T $opts ${1+"$@"} $disable_error
 
 # eof