ATLANTA — A man in Georgia who was having a mental health crisis got lost and ended up at a Sealy Mattress facility. About a week later, his body was found locked in the back of a truck there, according to a wrongful death case that his family filed this week.
After Joshua Armour went missing in October, his family and friends desperately searched for him all night long. His phone’s GPS showed that he was on land in Conyers, Georgia, which is southeast of Atlanta.
The claim says that after Armour’s family told a Sealy supervisor that he looked like he was there, workers were told to lock and close all the trailers out of fear that someone was on the property. When the 27-year-old’s brother and sister tried to search the area, they were told to leave.
The claim says that Sealy did nothing to find or protect Joshua and that the trailers could not be opened from the inside once they were locked.
The claim says it’s sad that Sealy only cared about protecting its own property and didn’t pay attention to Joshua’s life or his family’s pleas.
Officials from Tempur Sealy International said in a statement on Friday that they were saddened by what happened and that their thoughts and prayers are with the victim’s family and loved ones.
The company said, “We have been fully cooperating with the local authorities as we run a thorough investigation to find out all the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident.”
One of Armour’s family lawyers, Mark Johnson, said that the supervisor who met with them that night wouldn’t let them see the video to make sure it was their brother. The company had video of an unnamed person on the property.
“We wrote Sealy a letter and asked for all the videos, but we haven’t heard anything back,” Johnson said.
One of Gov. Brian Kemp’s main legislative goals this year is to make it harder for people to sue businesses. He says that big civil case payouts hurt the state’s economy. He didn’t say much in his yearly State of the State address to lawmakers on Thursday. Others disagree and say that the new limits would make it harder for people who have been hurt to get justice.
If lawmakers tried to do something like this, Johnson said he thinks the case “would certainly survive.”
The family of Armour, who had two kids, wants a hearing by a jury.
Sealy Mattress Manufacturing Co. LLC, Tempur-Pedic North America LLC, and Tempur Sealy International Inc. are all named as defendants in the case. The family is being helped by two law firms: Sinton Scott Minock & Kerew in Atlanta and Kenneth S. Nugent P.C.
Armour’s fiancée, Jasmine Jennings said he was “an amazing person, very selfless, always smiling, happy.”
She told the press, “He was the life of the party and the jokester.” “He had a lot of goals and wanted to do a lot of big things.”
He worked as a plumber on big building jobs and wanted to become a civil engineer or work in economic development, but she said he never had the chance to learn more.
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