Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)

Bear with me, i'm a little new to all of this.

When i make a call from a ResultSet rs from my servlet:

java.util.Date referDate = rs.getDate(new String("Last Refer Date"));

I get a java.lang.IllegalArgumentException. I find this to be a little strange, because if i put in a bogus string i get an invalid column name error. Why would this string, which appears to be a valid column name/label according to my query, be considered an "IllegalArgument"?

Any help appreciated. Thanks!



Details
-------
The query looks like this:

SELECT tracking_state "R/A", 20, job_no "Job Number", 50, rtrim(app_data2) "WireCenter", 70, RTRIM(TO_CHAR(last_refer_dt,'MM/DD/YYYY HH:MI:SS')) "Last Refer Date", 90, RTRIM(TO_CHAR(last_answer_dt,'MM/DD/YYYY HH:MI:SS')) "Last Answer Date", 90 FROM referred_job_tbl WHERE tracking_state = '1' AND rtrim(app_data2) IN (SELECT clli_id FROM lov_wire_center WHERE state_cd = 'GA')order by last_refer_dt

And the error details look like this:

Exception: Exception

Error: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException

Class: class java.lang.IllegalArgumentException

Stack Trace: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException at java.sql.Date.valueOf(Date.java:100) at oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleStatement.getDateValue(OracleStatement.java:3219) at oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleResultSetImpl.getDate(OracleResultSetImpl.java:345) at oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleResultSet.getDate(OracleResultSet.java:1427) at RMCWebJobList.displayListResult(RMCWebJobList.java:411) at RMCWebServlet.processList(RMCWebServlet.java:623) at RMCWebServlet.doPost(RMCWebServlet.java:264) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:760) at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:853) at org.apache.catalina.servlets.InvokerServlet.serveRequest(InvokerServlet.java:458) at org.apache.catalina.servlets.InvokerServlet.doPost(InvokerServlet.java:216) at