sanctions, as will bad faith, willful disregard or gross indifference to an order of the court, or conduct which evinces deliberate callousness.” Absent evidence of a willful failure to comply or extensive prejudice to the opposition, however, the granting of such an order constitutes an abuse of discretion. It also has been found to be an abuse of discretion to strike pleadings where a litigant is punished for the failure of counsel, or where there is only a single failure to comply which did not result in extreme prejudice to the other side. Although the trial court in this case did not strike Kamhi’s pleadings, its order prohibiting her from presenting evidence and proffering testimony was tantamount to the severest of sanctions. In its motion for sanctions, Waterview never pl 2000) (<HOLDING>). Relying on such cases and the record in the
holding that the court may consider collateral evidence of the circumstances surrounding the execution of the agreement in determining whether the language of the agreement is unclear and if the evidence presented is so plain that no reasonable person could hold any way but one then the court may interpret the meaning as a matter of law holding that sanctions may not be imposed mechanically but rather the circumstances of each case must be carefully weighed so that the sanction properly takes into account the severity of the partys disobedience holding that the movant has the initial responsibility of informing the district court of the basis for its motion holding that where the issue of sanctions was not before the court of appeals when the appeal was filed the district court retained jurisdiction holding that the choice of appropriate sanctions is primarily the responsibility of the district court but that the sanction selected must be one that a reasonable jurist apprised of the circumstances would have chosen proportionate to the infraction