diff --git a/packages/spanner/src/codec.js b/packages/spanner/src/codec.js
index 9d4f2627677..2c2ed904331 100644
--- a/packages/spanner/src/codec.js
+++ b/packages/spanner/src/codec.js
@@ -26,6 +26,13 @@ var commonGrpc = require('@google-cloud/common-grpc');
 var is = require('is');
 
 function SpannerDate(value) {
+  if (arguments.length > 1) {
+    throw new TypeError([
+      'The spanner.date function accepts a Date object or a',
+      'single argument parseable by Date\'s constructor.'
+    ].join(' '));
+  }
+
   if (is.undefined(value)) {
     value = new Date();
   }
diff --git a/packages/spanner/test/codec.js b/packages/spanner/test/codec.js
index 625e7f5e27b..940b132bde0 100644
--- a/packages/spanner/test/codec.js
+++ b/packages/spanner/test/codec.js
@@ -43,6 +43,17 @@ describe('codec', function() {
   });
 
   describe('SpannerDate', function() {
+    it('should choke on multiple arguments', function() {
+      var expectedErrorMessage = [
+        'The spanner.date function accepts a Date object or a',
+        'single argument parseable by Date\'s constructor.'
+      ].join(' ');
+
+      assert.throws(function() {
+        new codec.SpannerDate(2012, 3, 21);
+      }, new RegExp(expectedErrorMessage));
+    });
+
     it('should create an instance from a string', function() {
       var spannerDate = new codec.SpannerDate('08-20-1969');
       assert.strictEqual(spannerDate.value, '1969-08-20');