Aрpellant was injured while riding a bus operated by appellee, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro). After a jury returned a verdict for appellant, the trial court granted appellеe’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Because we conclude that appellant presented evidence sufficient to allow a reasonable trier of fact to find in her favor, we reverse the trial court’s judgment and remand this case with directions to reinstate the jury’s verdict and to enter judgment upon it in favor of appellant.
Late one evening in October 1976, during a severe rainstorm, appellаnt climbed aboard a Metrobus at a downtown intersection. As she boarded, she was carrying a small bag of groceries, a tote bag containing some magazines and a hair dryer, and a shoulder bag. She gavе her transfer to the driver with her free hand and started toward the first pair of seats facing the front, a few feet behind the driver. As appellant moved along the rain-dampened floor, the bus pulled away from the curb, throwing her against a metal pole and then onto the floor. The fall resulted in compound fractures of her right tibia and fibula. The injury, which caused her right leg after it healed to be half an inch shorter than her lеft, kept appellant away from her job for more than a year.
*583 Appellant’s work as a beautician requires her to be constantly on her feet. Before the injury, she had normally worked nine-to ten-hоur days. Since her return to the job, however, continuing pain has forced her to work only four days a week, to shorten her working hours, and to take fewer customers. Consequently, her income has been cut in half. In Aрril 1978 appellant filed this action against Metro, alleging that the bus driver negligently pulled the bus away from the bus stop.
In her testimony appellant described the start of the bus as “abrupt” and “violent.” In her fifty years as a bus ridеr, she had come to expect “a gentle start, sometimes a little faster, but nothing violent or extraordinary.” Appellant’s orthopedic surgeon testified that her injury was one that “takes a considerable amount of violence.” The bus driver stated that, when she pulled away from the stop, she knew that the floor was wet and that appellant had not yet reached a seat. The driver also said that she realized at the time that the traffic light just ahead was red, and hence that the bus would be able to move only about ten feet before having to stop.
The jury found for appellant, awarding her $50,000. The trial court then granted Metro’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, holding that appellant had failed to produce evidence sufficient to permit a reasonable jury to find Metro negligent. The court said in its memorandum oрinion that “[pjlaintiff’s total showing of negligence consisted of her own statements that the bus started ‘suddenly’, ‘abruptly’, and ‘violently’.” It apparently discounted the doctor’s testimony as to the violence required to cause appellant’s injury; indeed, it made no mention whatsoever of the doctor’s testimony except to refer, in one sentence, to his description of appellant’s injury and his use of a model to demonstrate the fracture. Stating that appellant “clearly ... was off balance at the time of the fall,” 1 the court held that “plaintiff s injuries do not provide corroboration of violent movement оr negligence ... because the injuries are totally compatible with an unbalanced person and could have been triggered by any movement of the bus.”
The standard guiding both trial and appellate courts on a motion for judgment n.o.v. is clear:
The trial court must deny a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict unless the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party with all reasonable inferencеs drawn therefrom, is so clear that reasonable men could reach but one conclusion. ... When there is “some evidence from which jurors could find the necessary elements,” ... the case is for the jury.
District of Columbia v. Gandy,
The trial court held that that description was insufficient to permit a jury to find in her favor. Arguing in support of the trial court’s ruling, appellee cites a line of decisions in which this court has held such descriptions to be insufficient by themselves to send a case to the jury. In
Wiggins v. Capital Transit Co.,
Similarly, in
D.C. Transit System, Inc. v. Perry,
The trial court in the case at bar failed to recognize that, in each of these cases, the testimony which was held to be insufficient did not show that the operation of the bus was in any way unusual or extraordinary. The descriptions of the buses’ movements were, as wе pointed out in
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. Jones,
A passenger inside the bus is not able to establish a рrima facie case of negligence by merely presenting a description of movement equally consistent with proper operation of the bus. On the other hand, testimony of unreasonable spеed, given by a witness who was outside the bus, is not descriptive of movement consistent with proper operation of the bus, and is not within the holding of Perry.
Id.
Nor, we now hold, is the testimony of a passenger within the holding of
Perry
when that testimony describes conduct inconsistent with the normal and proper operation of a bus. The critical question to be answered, as we made clear in
Jones,
is not whether the passenger — or any other witness, for that matter — uses “descriptive adjectives”
2
in testifying about the movement of a vehicle. Rather, it is whether the testimony, in whatever form it is offered, describes movement that is “consistent with proper operation of the bus.” The actual words or parts of speech that a witness may employ on the stand are irrelevant to the court’s ruling on a motion for judgment n.o.v. (or for a directed verdict), which must be based on the substance of the testimony, not on its grammatical form. Appellee seems to argue that
Jones
should apply only to the testimony of non-passengers who are not parties to the suit. Whether this argument is basеd on some fancied defect in a passenger’s vantage point or on the self-evident interest of a party in the outcome of the case, it is unpersuasive.
See, e.g., Gober v. Yellow Cab Co.,
Mrs. Boyko’s testimony that the motion of the bus was “abrupt” and “violent” clearly transcends the descriptions by the plaintiffs in
Wiggins, Perry,
and
Fells.
Unless, as appellee appears to suggest, the normal ride on a Metrobus is a violent one, it seems to us that appellant’s testimony describes conduct not consistent with the ordinary operation of a bus. Moreover, and
*585-589
more significantly, appellant testified that the start of the bus was unlike what she had come to expect in her fifty years of riding buses. Appellant’s testimony was thereforе plainly outside the scope of
Wiggins
and its progeny. In addition, appellant’s doctor stated that “it would take a considerable amount of violence” to cause the particular kind of injury which she suffered. Like appellant’s own testimony, this statement suggests that the bus’ motion was inconsistent with its normal operation. We said in
Wiggins,
and reiterate here, that evidence concerning the injury itself could be probative of negligence, when there is other proof.
This is not to suggest that a jury could not have found for Metro on the facts of this case. But that is not what we must decide. A motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict asks the trial court to determine whether a reasonable jury could have done what the present jury did. We hold that a reasonable jury could have found appellee’s bus driver to havе been negligent; therefore, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and direct it to reinstate the verdict awarding appellant $50,000 in damages.
Reversed and remanded.