Four partners who dealt in cotton bales, brought up a cat which served to keep rats of their goods. They treated their pet kitten with so much fondness, they having apportioned its our legs among themselves, each loaded his own leg of the cat with costly golden anklets and other valuable jewels. One day the cat happened to hurt one of its legs and its owner accordingly bandaged the wounded limb with a rag soaked in oil. The cat happening to approach the hearth its bandage caught fire, and also limped and lumped about hither and thither owing to great pain, the whole stock of cotton bales in the joint godown caught fire and was completely destroyed.
The owner of the wounded leg was thereupon sued by the other three partners for damages, on the ground that it was the wounded let that had caused the conflagration of their whole stock-in-trade. Mariada Ramanna, before whom the cause came up, knew that the unfortunate Defendant was not really to blame as he had intended nothing evil, and that the Plaintiffs were preferring a frivolous claim against him. He, therefore, gave a decree where-by he directed that the three partners who owned the sound legs i.e., the Plaintiffs in fact, should make good to the owner of the wounded leg, the Defendant, one quarter of the value of the cotton bales destroyed, on the ground that it was the sound legs which had helped the cat to jump about and set fire to the cotton bales.
