In Hart v. Miller, 65 Md. App. 620, 501 A.2d 872 (1985), the Court reviewed the conduct of an attorney whose dilatory actions ultimately caused a circuit court judge to dismiss the plaintiffs' case. The Court reversed the dismissal. Defense counsel in Hart filed a motion to compel discovery and to postpone trial because plaintiffs' counsel had failed to answer interrogatories. Id. at 622. In response to the motion to compel, the trial judge directed that plaintiffs answer interrogatories by January 28, 1984. Id. Thereafter, defense counsel agreed to extend the time for answering interrogatories for six days. Id. After the extended deadline passed, plaintiffs' counsel still did not answer interrogatories. Id. Defense counsel waited more than three weeks and, on March 26, 1984, told plaintiffs' attorney that he would request the court to grant "appropriate relief" if the interrogatory answers were not received by April 3. Id. On April 6, defense counsel filed for dismissal of the case on the ground that interrogatory answers had still not been filed. Id. Plaintiffs' counsel filed an opposition to the motion. Id. A hearing on the motion to dismiss was set for May 17, 1984, which was approximately one month prior to the scheduled trial date. Id. Shortly before the May 17th hearing, plaintiff's counsel finally filed his clients' interrogatory answers. Id. In Hart, plaintiffs' counsel advanced several excuses for his failure to obey the court's order, viz: counsel was absent from his office for five consecutive months in 1983 due to a back injury; counsel had "recurring medical problems" between June 1983 and May 1984; one of the plaintiffs, Paul M. Hart, underwent surgery and was hospitalized until the first week of April 1984; one of the plaintiffs had submitted to a deposition on May 15, 1984, and had produced extensive discovery prior to the May 17th hearing date. Id. at 623. Despite these excuses, the trial judge (Honorable Perry G. Bowen) dismissed the plaintiffs' complaint for failure to comply with his order to file interrogatories no later than January 28, 1984. Id. at 624. In the course of his opinion, the trial judge said: "Now when you get an Order from the court to do something by way of discovery and Perry Bowen's name is signed to the bottom of that Order, that means that your time has run out. You better do what it says or don't complain when the sanction is requested and granted." Id. at 625. In reversing the lower court's judgment, Judge Getty for this Court said: The alternatives available to a trial judge in imposing sanctions for failure to comply with discovery, answering interrogatories herein, clearly demonstrate that the trial judge is required to consider every aspect of the case and then choose the most appropriate remedy. Discretion signifies choice. Consideration of the various elements of the problem does not preordain a single permissible conclusion. See Rosenberg, Judicial Discretion of the Trial Court, supra, cited in Shimer v. Edwards, 482 A.2d 399 (D.C. App. 1984). Failure to exercise choice in a situation calling for choice is an abuse of discretion, because it assumes the existence of a rule that admits of but one answer. See Brown v. United States, 372 A.2d 557 (D.C. App. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 921, 98 S. Ct. 397, 54 L. Ed. 2d 278 (1977). When, as in the present case, the trial court recognizes its right to exercise discretion, but then declines to exercise it in favor of adhering to some consistent or uniform policy, it errs. Berryman v. United States, 378 A.2d 1317 (D.C. App. 1977). See, generally, Johnson v. United States, 398 A.2d 354 (D.C. App. 1979). We recognize that consistent patterns may arise from the exercise of judicial discretion, consistency, however, must remain as the result and not the objective. (65 Md. App. at 626-27.) Later, in Hart, Judge Getty continued: Dismissal runs counter to valid societal preference for a decision on the merits. The trial court had already concluded that appellants' counsel had done "nothing wilful, nothing contumacious, nothing intentionally overreaching . . . he didn't get it done when the court ordered him to do it." In view of the status of the case at the time of the Motions Hearing, together with the lack of wrongful conduct on the part of appellant Hart, and the realization that the statute of limitations had run on this cause of action, we hold that it was an abuse of discretion to dismiss the case thus precluding Hart from pursuing his claim for the grievous personal injuries and monetary damage he sustained. Some sanction as to counsel was appropriate; dismissal was not. (65 Md. App. at 628.) The Court reversed a trial court's dismissal of a personal injury action for the plaintiff's failure to reply timely to interrogatories. But we did so because the trial court failed to exercise its discretion in the first place, not because of any facts similar to these. The trial court had incorrectly concluded in Hart that it was required to dismiss the case based on delays in the plaintiff's producing discovery, and did not even consider the fact that the plaintiff (as opposed to plaintiff's counsel) was not responsible for or aware of the delay in providing responses. Id. at 627. Moreover, the plaintiff's counsel, who had delayed in responding to discovery, had been absent from his solo practice for five months due to an injury, but still corresponded with counsel for the defendants twenty-two times over the less-than-eleven-month period in question. Id. at 623. The plaintiff, too, had been hospitalized for a large part of the time period in question. Depositions had taken place, and hundreds of pages of medical reports had been provided to the defendants, along with 250 pages of attachments and enclosures to the answers to interrogatories. Id. at 624. The Court held that the circuit court abused its discretion when it dismissed a case with prejudice when a party failed to comply with a deadline for filing responses to interrogatories. Hart, supra, 65 Md. App. at 626. The circuit court had emphasized the need for consistency in sanctions and failed to consider the specifics of the particular case. Id. The Court stated: We disagree, however, with the trial court's interpretation that the objective in cases calling for the exercise of discretion is for the trial judge to be consistent in deciding the sanction to be invoked. If that were the rule, the vesting of discretion in a trial judge, to decide each case on the merits, would be meaningless. Id.