Present: All the Justices 

THE ATRIUM UNIT OWNERS ASSOCIATION 

v. Record No. 022417 OPINION BY JUSTICE CYNTHIA D. KINSER 

 September 12, 2003 

SHARON KING 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF ARLINGTON COUNTY 

Joanne F. Alper, Judge 

 In this negligence case, the dispositive issue is 

whether the plaintiff produced sufficient evidence from 

which a jury reasonably could infer a causal connection 

between a condominium unit owners association’s alleged 

negligence regarding a convenience key and the damages 

sustained by the plaintiff in a burglary of her 

condominium. We conclude that the plaintiff failed to 

establish proximate causation and will, therefore, reverse 

the judgment of the circuit court sustaining a jury verdict 

in favor of the plaintiff. 

MATERIAL FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS 

 Sharon King owned a condominium unit on the sixth 

floor of The Atrium, a high-rise condominium complex 

located in Arlington County. As required by The Atrium 

Unit Owners Association Rules and Regulations, King 

provided the general manager a key to her unit for use in 

an emergency. The Rules also permitted residents to 

deposit an additional key called a “convenience key” with 
the general manager. The convenience key would be given to 

those persons specifically authorized by the resident on an 

“admittance envelope.” King chose to take advantage of 

this service. 

 On November 12, 1997, King left for a trip to 

California. On November 16, 1997, King received a voice 

mail message from Thomas K. Meyer, the real estate agent 

with whom King had listed her condominium for sale. Meyer 

informed King that he was unable to show her condominium to 

some potential buyers because the convenience key was 

missing. King then called her daughter, Lenette Lepore, 

and asked her to leave a key for Meyer at The Atrium’s 

“front desk.” When Lepore went to her mother’s condominium 

the next day, she discovered that the door was unlocked and 

the condominium was not in the condition in which her 

mother typically “left her house.” Clothes were lying on 

the floor and several drawers and cabinet doors were open. 

Lepore called her mother and the police to report a 

possible burglary. When King returned home the next week, 

she found that numerous items, including clothing, jewelry, 

coats, and electronic equipment, were missing from the 

condominium. 

 King subsequently filed a motion for judgment in the 

circuit court against The Atrium Unit Owners Association 

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(Atrium), Polinger Company, Polinger, Shannon & Luchs, and 

Brooks Business Transfer, Inc.1 Regarding Atrium, King 

alleged, as pertinent to the issues on appeal, that Atrium 

was negligent by failing “to train employees in security, 

. . . to store securely spare keys, to keep inventories of 

spare keys, to document adequately the distribution and 

return of spare keys, to follow established procedures 

regarding keys and control of the Atrium property, and to 

use due care under the circumstances.” King further 

alleged that Atrium’s negligence “was the sole, direct and 

proximate cause of [her] incurring a significant monetary 

loss of property, as well as considerable mental distress.” 

 At trial, Corporal Robert Rutledge, the Arlington 

County police officer who responded to Lepore’s call about 

the burglary, testified that he saw no signs of “forced 

entry” into King’s condominium. He stated that, in most 

burglaries where access is gained other than by forced 

entry, the burglar has either been allowed in by someone, 

used a key, or entered through an unsecured door or window. 

Corporal Rutledge testified that he found the sliding glass 

 1

 Polinger Company and Polinger, Shannon & Luchs were 

allegedly retained by Atrium to manage the condominium 

building. Brooks Business Transfer, Inc. was a commercial 

moving company whose employees were allegedly in the 

condominium complex around the time of the burglary of 

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door to the condominium’s balcony unlocked and that it is 

not “unheard of” for burglars to gain access to high-rise 

apartments by means of a balcony. However, Corporal 

Rutledge conceded that the location of King’s condominium 

in the building and the distance between balconies would 

make access “from balcony to balcony” difficult. 

 King’s real estate agent, Meyer, testified that he was 

familiar with Atrium’s procedure for obtaining a 

convenience key from the front desk. Once the personnel at 

the front desk determined that there was a permission slip 

for a particular person, they checked the key out to that 

individual. Meyer stated that, although the procedure for 

returning a key required the person to “sign the key back 

in” by initialing the key log, occasionally he would simply 

“hand it to [a person at the desk]” or “set it on the 

counter top.” 

 Continuing, Meyer stated that he had “a standing 

permission slip” from King allowing him to check out King’s 

convenience key for the purpose of showing her condominium 

to potential buyers. Meyer testified that when he asked 

for King’s convenience key on November 16, 1997, he was 

told that “they didn’t have a key for it.” Meyer had used 

________________________ 

King’s unit. All these defendants were dismissed with 

prejudice from the action. 

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the key on November 2, 1997, but insisted that he had 

returned it to the front desk after he had shown King’s 

condominium to a perspective buyer. He admitted, however, 

that he did not sign the key back in on November 2 by 

initialing the key log. Meyer was the last person to sign 

out the convenience key for King’s condominium before the 

burglary. 

 Shalu Wohldegioris, the front desk supervisor both 

before and after the burglary of King’s condominium, 

explained that the convenience keys were physically kept in 

a “box mounted on the counter in the inner side of the 

front desk.” The emergency keys, however, were stored “in 

a locked box on a wall in the general manager’s office.” 

According to Wohldegioris, all the front desk staff had 

access to the box containing the convenience keys.2 He also 

admitted that, in November 1997, Atrium did not have any 

procedure in effect for determining the whereabouts of a 

convenience key that was not returned to the front desk. 

 At the conclusion of King’s case-in-chief, Atrium 

moved to strike her evidence. The court took the motion to 

 2

 According to a private investigator hired to 

investigate the burglary at King’s condominium, Atrium’s 

general manager admitted that both employees and nonemployees had access to the box where the convenience keys 

were stored and that “there was lots of activity around the 

box.” 

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strike under advisement with regard to the negligence claim 

against Atrium and allowed that claim to proceed to the 

jury.3 The jury returned a verdict in favor of King. 

 Atrium filed a post-trial motion to set aside the 

verdict and to enter judgment for it as a matter of law. 

Atrium asserted that the court should have granted its 

earlier motion to strike because King “failed to establish 

a duty, failed to establish a breach of any duty, failed to 

establish notice, and failed to establish a causal 

relationship between the duty/breach and damages.” Atrium 

argued that each of these failures was fatal to King’s 

negligence claim. At the conclusion of a hearing on the 

motion, the circuit court denied Atrium’s motion. The 

court stated that “there was sufficient evidence to send 

the case to the jury” and that “[t]he jury’s verdict is not 

plainly wrong.” The court subsequently entered an order 

denying Atrium’s motion and granting judgment to King on 

the jury’s verdict. Atrium appeals from that judgment. 

ANALYSIS 

 “[A] party who comes before us with a jury verdict 

approved by the trial court ‘occupies the most favored 

position known to the law.’ ” Ravenwood Towers, Inc. v. 

 3

 The court granted the motion to strike with regard to 

a breach of contract claim that King had alleged against 

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Woodyard, 244 Va. 51, 57, 419 S.E.2d 627, 630 (1992) 

(quoting Pugsley v. Privette, 220 Va. 892, 901, 263 S.E.2d 

69, 76 (1980)); accord Sugarland Run Homeowners Ass’n v. 

Halfmann, 260 Va. 366, 371, 535 S.E.2d 469, 472 (2000). On 

appeal, we view the evidence and all reasonable inferences 

in the light most favorable to the prevailing party at 

trial. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. St. John, 259 Va. 71, 

76, 524 S.E.2d 649, 651 (2000); Ravenwood, 244 Va. at 57, 

519 S.E.2d at 630. A trial court’s judgment will not be 

set aside “unless it appears from the evidence that such 

judgment is plainly wrong or without evidence to support 

it.” Code § 8.01-680; accord Ravenwood, 244 Va. at 57, 

519S.E.2d at 630. However, upon applying these principles, 

if it appears that a judgment is plainly wrong or without 

evidence to support it, we must set it aside. Sugarland 

Run Homeowners Ass’n, 260 Va. at 371, 535 S.E.2d at 472. 

 To establish actionable negligence, King had the 

burden to show the existence of a legal duty, a breach of 

the duty, and proximate causation resulting in damage. Fox 

v. Custis, 236 Va. 69, 73, 372 S.E.2d 373, 375 (1988); 

Trimyer v. Norfolk Tallow Co., Inc., 192 Va. 776, 780, 66 

S.E.2d 441, 443 (1951); see Delk v. Columbia/HCA Healthcare 

Corp., 259 Va. 125, 132, 523 S.E.2d 826, 830 (2000). The 

________________________ 

Atrium. 

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dispositive question in this appeal is whether King 

established a causal connection between Atrium’s alleged 

negligent handling of her convenience key and the damages 

she suffered as a result of the burglary. 

 Atrium argues that King did not present any evidence 

proving “how, or by whom, or even whether . . . the 

convenience key was used in the burglary.” Atrium asserts 

that this failure was fatal to King’s case and, that by 

submitting the case to the jury, “the trial court 

erroneously invited the jury to speculate.” On this issue, 

King contends that there was credible circumstantial 

evidence supporting the jury’s determination as to 

proximate causation. King points to the evidence that she 

could account for all the keys to her condominium except 

for the missing convenience key, that there were no signs 

of forced entry into her condominium, and that any other 

reasonable method of “unforced entry” was excluded. We 

agree with Atrium. 

 “The proximate cause of an event is that act or 

omission which, in natural and continuous sequence, 

unbroken by an efficient intervening cause, produces the 

event, and without which that event would not have 

occurred.” Beale v. Jones, 210 Va. 519, 522, 171 S.E.2d 

851, 853 (1970). Proximate cause is generally a question 

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of fact to be resolved by a jury. Jenkins v. Payne, 251 

Va. 122, 128, 465 S.E.2d 795, 799 (1996). Although facts 

may be established by circumstantial evidence, Fobbs v. 

Webb Bldg. Ltd. P’ship, 232 Va. 227, 230, 349 S.E.2d 355, 

357 (1986), such evidence “must be sufficient to establish 

that the result alleged is a probability rather than a mere 

possibility.” Southern States Coop., Inc. v. Doggett, 223 

Va. 650, 657, 292 S.E.2d 331, 335 (1982). Before a 

question of fact with regard to proximate cause may be 

submitted to a jury, the evidence proving the causal 

connection must be “sufficient to take the question out of 

the realm of mere conjecture, or speculation, and into the 

realm of legitimate inference.” Beale, 210 Va. at 522, 171 

S.E.2d at 853 (quoting Hawkins v. Beecham, 168 Va. 553, 

561, 191 S.E. 640, 643 (1937)). 

 In Wooldridge v. Echelon Service Co., 243 Va. 458, 

459, 416 S.E.2d 441, 442 (1992), we considered whether a 

plaintiff produced sufficient evidence to establish 

proximate cause. There, a woman was fatally attacked in a 

building for which Echelon provided security services. Id.

at 460, 416 S.E.2d at 442. At trial, one of the security 

guards on duty at the time of the attack testified that he 

saw a “ ‘flash in the elevator corridor . . . [l]ike 

someone had ran . . . from the down elevator to the up 

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elevator.’ ” Id. at 459-60, 416 S.E.2d at 442. The 

security guard stated that he called out to the individual 

but that the individual did not respond. The security 

guard did not pursue the individual. Id. at 460, 416 

S.E.2d at 442. Shortly thereafter, the security guards 

received a telephone call reporting that a woman was 

screaming on the 11th floor of the building. Id. The 

security guard testified that, when he went to the 11th 

floor to investigate, he was confronted by a man holding a 

pair of long scissors in his hand. Id. The security guard 

also found the victim “wearing a bloody shirt and 

wheezing.” Id. Although the man initially fled, he was 

later apprehended in the lobby of the building. Id.

 A jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, 

but the trial court set aside the jury verdict and entered 

judgment for the defendant. Id. at 460-61, 416 S.E.2d at 

442-43. The trial court concluded that the jury’s finding 

of “‘a nexus between the entry of the ‘flash’ into the 

building, the failure to pursue the ‘flash’ to the exact 

site of [the] crime, . . . and the ultimate damage done 

could only have been based upon surmise, conjecture, and 

speculation by the jury.’” Id. at 461, 416 S.E.2d at 443. 

 We reversed, stating that the plaintiff “needed only 

to produce sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude 

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that [the man apprehended] was the ‘flash’ seen and called 

to by [the security guard], and that he gained access to 

the upper floors of the building at that point.” Id. at 

461, 416 S.E.2d at 443. We noted that the security guard 

testified that the “flash” was a person and that, after 

calling out to the individual, he did not pursue the man 

further or attempt to require him to follow the procedures 

for admission to the building. Id. at 461-62, 416 S.E.2d 

at 443. The evidence also showed that the call reporting 

an attack on the 11th floor was received a short time later 

and that the man apprehended was the sole unauthorized 

person found in the building at the time of the attack. 

Id. We concluded that, “[b]ased upon this circumstantial 

evidence, . . . the jury reasonably could [have] infer[red] 

that [the assailant] was the person [the security guard] 

saw running from the ‘down elevators’ into the ‘up 

elevators’ ” and that the security guard’s “inaction” was a 

proximate cause of the victim’s death. Id.

 A plaintiff has the burden “to establish a causal 

connection between the defendant’s alleged negligence and 

the injury of which the plaintiff complains.” Commercial 

Distributors, Inc. v. Blankenship, 240 Va. 382, 395, 397 

S.E.2d 840, 847 (1990). Thus, in this case, King had the 

burden to produce evidence from which the jury reasonably 

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could infer that, as a result of Atrium’s alleged 

negligence, the convenience key was used to access her 

condominium for the purpose of committing a burglary. We 

conclude that King failed to carry this burden. 

 The evidence presented at trial established that the 

convenience key could not be found at the front desk when 

Meyer asked for it on November 16 and that there were no 

signs of forced entry into King’s condominium. But, 

Corporal Rutledge testified that the use of a key was only

one of several ways in which a burglar could have gained 

access to the condominium without using force. Although 

the location of King’s balcony would have made access by 

way of the balcony difficult, it is, nevertheless, notable 

that Corporal Rutledge found the sliding glass door to the 

balcony unlocked. Moreover, Atrium’s employees had access 

to the convenience keys, but King presented no evidence to

show what happened to her convenience key after Meyer 

returned it to the front desk on November 2, whether any of 

Atrium’s employees saw her key after that date, or whether 

the convenience key, as opposed to another key, was even 

used in the burglary. “Proof of ‘possibility’ of causal 

connection is not sufficient.” Wilkins v. Sibley, 205 Va. 

171, 175, 135 S.E.2d 765, 767 (1964). The evidence in this 

case did not establish that Atrium’s alleged negligent 

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handling of the convenience key was an “act or omission 

which, in natural and continuous sequence, . . . produc[ed] 

the [burglary], and without which [the burglary] would not 

have occurred.” Beale, 210 Va. at 522, 171 S.E.2d at 853. 

CONCLUSION 

 Here, unlike Wooldridge, there was nothing in the 

record from which the jury could reasonably infer a causal 

connection between Atrium’s alleged negligence and the 

damages King sustained as a result of the burglary. 

Therefore, the circuit court erred by submitting the case 

to the jury and by affirming a jury verdict that could only 

have been “the product of mere conjecture, surmise, or 

speculation.” Wooldridge, 243 Va. at 462, 416 S.E.2d at 

443. 

 For these reasons, we will reverse the judgment of the 

circuit court and enter final judgment here in favor of 

Atrium. 

Reversed and final judgment. 

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