diff --git a/docs/libcurl/curl_multi_assign.3 b/docs/libcurl/curl_multi_assign.3
index 70a00f884e..8961dc3c20 100644
--- a/docs/libcurl/curl_multi_assign.3
+++ b/docs/libcurl/curl_multi_assign.3
@@ -48,6 +48,8 @@ The idea here being that this association (socket to private pointer) is
 something that just about every application that uses this API will need and
 then libcurl can just as well do it since it already has an internal hash
 table lookup for this.
+
+It is acceptable to call this function from your multi callback functions.
 .SH EXAMPLE
 .nf
  /* make our struct pointer associated with socket fd */
diff --git a/lib/multi.c b/lib/multi.c
index 0b76874cd4..6fdeafb8e6 100644
--- a/lib/multi.c
+++ b/lib/multi.c
@@ -3571,9 +3571,6 @@ CURLMcode curl_multi_assign(struct Curl_multi *multi, curl_socket_t s,
 {
   struct Curl_sh_entry *there = NULL;
 
-  if(multi->in_callback)
-    return CURLM_RECURSIVE_API_CALL;
-
   there = sh_getentry(&multi->sockhash, s);
 
   if(!there)