diff --git a/hbase-rest/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/rest/RowResultGenerator.java b/hbase-rest/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/rest/RowResultGenerator.java
index d08204dd0cd..9bc3ec3c156 100644
--- a/hbase-rest/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/rest/RowResultGenerator.java
+++ b/hbase-rest/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/rest/RowResultGenerator.java
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ import java.util.NoSuchElementException;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.Cell;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.CellUtil;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.DoNotRetryIOException;
+import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.security.AccessDeniedException;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.Get;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.Result;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.Table;
@@ -78,6 +79,10 @@ public class RowResultGenerator extends ResultGenerator {
       // help to avoid confusion by leaving a record of what happened here in
       // the log.
       LOG.warn(StringUtils.stringifyException(e));
+      // Lets get the exception rethrown to get a more meaningful error message than 404
+      if (e instanceof AccessDeniedException) {
+        throw e;
+      }
     } finally {
       table.close();
     }