I agree with @demobox as well but @nacx the invoked method is [propagateIfPossible(https://github.com/jclouds/jclouds/blob/master/core/src/main/java/org/jclouds/util/Throwables2.java#L130) which behaves differently if the exception contains in its cause chain an IllegalStateException or a RuntimeException.
In fact RuntimeException is not considered on the loop so the throwable returned by
```Throwable throwable = Throwables2.getFirstThrowableOfType(exception, propagatableExceptionType);```
is HttpResponseException, which makes pointless the try/catch in the code as it is catching a SoftLayerOrderItemDuplicateException and not an HttpResponseException.

Makes more sense?