Unable to create directory "mkdir: cannot create directory `xxx': No space left on device", however able to create in other directories of same filesystem

Issue

We have recieved the below error when appying an oracle patch on a RHEL 6.3 system.

Writing to other parts of the same file system was working. Overall file system usage was 51% and Inode usage was 12% - indicating the file system capacity was not a problem. The server was rebooted and the file system check on reboot was clean.

Is there any evidence of a file sytem issue?

/apps/oracle/<dir>/inst/apps/<dir>/admin/out> mkdir xxx
mkdir: cannot create directory `xxx': No space left on device
/apps/oracle/<dir>/inst/apps/<dir>/admin/out> df -h .
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/DATAVG-DATA00
                      197G  100G   96G  51% /apps