diff --git a/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/handler/codec/http/CookieDecoder.java b/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/handler/codec/http/CookieDecoder.java
index 0a090313bd..3397b28e6a 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/handler/codec/http/CookieDecoder.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/jboss/netty/handler/codec/http/CookieDecoder.java
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ public class CookieDecoder {
 
     private final static String COMMA = ",";
 
-    private boolean lenient;
+    private final boolean lenient;
 
     /**
      * Creates a new decoder with strict parsing.