BOSTON - Willie Evans remembers all the things his mother tried to quit smoking: the patch, the gum and even hypnotism.
Her attempts all failed. Marie Evans died of lung cancer in 2002 at the age of 54.
Willie Evans sued Lorillard Tobacco Co., arguing that the company got his mother hooked on smoking by giving away free cigarette samples to children in her Boston housing project in the 1950s and '60s.
A jury awarded $152 million in damages, an amount that was later reduced to $116 million.
Lorillard's appeal is set to go before the highest court in Massachusetts next month. The company argues that the trial judge made a series of rulings that prevented the company from getting a fair trial.
For Willie Evans, the appeal is another step in the process for finding justice for his mother.
"We think today of what our reaction would be if a tobacco company were to go into a playground and give cigarettes to kids, and we would be outraged," he said.
"My reaction is one of outrage that they would target kids at such a young age."
During the 2010 trial, Evans' lawyers said Marie Evans first received free samples of Lorillard's Newport cigarettes when she was 9 or 10 years old. She said she initially gave them to her older sisters or traded them for candy, but then began smoking Newports herself regularly when she was about 13.
One of Marie Evans' sisters testified that the cigarettes were delivered in a white truck that attracted adults and children in the Orchard Park housing project in the Roxbury section of Boston.
In a videotaped deposition shown to jurors, Marie Evans said the giveaways had a "large impact" on her.
"Because they were available ... I didn't worry about finding money to buy them," she said.
Evans said she made about 50 attempts to quit but always went back to smoking.
"I was addicted. ... I just couldn't stop," she said.
Lorillard's lawyers argued during the trial that Evans made the decision to start smoking and continued to smoke even after she suffered a heart attack in 1985 and her doctors urged her to quit.
The company denied giving away cigarette samples to children. In its appeal, Lorillard said it was denied a fair trial, in part because the judge allowed the jury to hear about Evans' claim that the company marketed its cigarettes to African-Americans and children.
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