Sealy Mattress company is sued after Georgia man was found dead inside a locked trailer

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia man suffering a mental health crisis wandered into a Sealy Mattress facility, and his body was found locked inside the back of a truck there about a week later, his family says in a wrongful death lawsuit filed this week.

Relatives had been frantically searching for Joshua Armour late into the night after he disappeared in October. Location data from his phone showed he was somewhere on the property in Conyers, Georgia, southeast of Atlanta.

After the family told a supervisor at Sealy that Armour appeared to be there, employees were instructed to close and lock all the trailers out of concern that someone was on the property, the lawsuit states. The 27-year-old's brother and sister say they were told to leave and were not allowed to search the area.

Once the trailers were locked, they could not be opened from the inside, and “Sealy did absolutely nothing to locate or protect Joshua,” the lawsuit says.

“Tragically, Sealy chose to act only to protect its own property, while consciously choosing to disregard the life of Joshua and the pleas of his family,” the lawsuit states.

In a statement Friday, Tempur Sealy International said it is saddened by the incident and “our deepest sympathies are with the victim's family and loved ones.”

“We have been conducting a thorough investigation to understand all the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident and have fully cooperated with local authorities,” the company said.

The company had video of an unidentified person on the property, but the supervisor who met with Armour's relatives that night refused to let them see it to confirm it was their brother, said Mark Johnson, one of the family's lawyers.

“We have reached out to Sealy by letter and asked for all video and haven’t received a response, nothing,” Johnson said.

Gov. Brian Kemp has made limiting the ability of people to sue businesses one of his key legislative priorities this year, saying civil lawsuits with big payouts harm the state's economy. He provided few details in his annual State of the State address to lawmakers on Thursday. Opponents say new limits would make it harder for injured parties to find justice.

Johnson said he thinks this lawsuit “would certainly survive” any such effort in the legislature.

The family of Armour, who had two children, is requesting a jury trial.

Defendants in the lawsuit include the Sealy Mattress Manufacturing Co. LLC; Tempur-Pedic North America LLC; and Tempur Sealy International Inc. The family is represented by the Atlanta law firm Sinton Scott Minock & Kerew; and Kenneth S. Nugent P.C.

Armour's fiancée, Jasmine Jennings, described him as “an amazing person, very selfless, always smiling, happy.”

“He was the life of the party, the jokester,” she said in an interview. “And he was very aspirational — he wanted to do a lot of big things.”

He had been doing plumbing work for large building projects, and wanted to become a civil engineer or work in economic development, but he never got the opportunity to get more training, she said.

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This story has been corrected to reflect that Joshua Armour was 27, not 38 as originally appeared in a sheriff's report.