A soft-denial system for client-server networks is disclosed for translating server authorization denials into responses that are known to be innocuous to the client application. The soft-denial system includes a client-application which originates a service request across a network to a server-application which rejects the request due to lack of authorization and subsequently provides a denial response. A soft-denial application intercepts the denial response, translates the response into a response known to be innocuous to the client-application, and forwards the innocuous response to the client-application. The soft-denial system is particularly useful for overcoming client-application failures due to authorization expectation mismatches.